The Collective Project - SUMMER PROJECT

During lockdown, like many others, I really missed being able to go to galleries and feel a wave of inspiration from seeing artist works first hand. I missed being able to hear about and discuss ideas at uni and really found it hard to sit down and draw anything! I began to wonder, did other people feel the same? This is where the idea of wanting to collaborate with others to create one book of work of drawings began. 

My aim for this project was to:

-  create a platform where people could share their work physically

-  to inspire and get inspired

-  set up a platform for artists to reach out, collaborate and support each other.

So what actually is The Collective Project?

Each creator would receive one of the 3 empty sketchbooks and they have a 3 day window to fill 1 double page with anything they liked. This could be a drawing, painting, poem, recipe, photographs, textile work, anything that could be held within this book. they could sign and put a link or business card in if they wished too. Once they were finish they would receive an address of a person they didn't know (or my self if people did not wish to share this info, I would personally post it my self). The book would then go on to the next person to do their piece. This would allow people to flip through work them selves, like going to a private viewing in your home. Furthermore, putting your work in amongst others, for others to see allows each creator to feel apart of something. 

To achieve this I reached out to friends and family on social media and created an instagram to spread the word. Sooner or later I had roughly 100 people signed up to take part! When the books ware complete, I want to combine them to create a printed version which people could order. This would be lovely to see your own work in a book amongst many others. Maybe if I carried doing more books I could create volumes of printed books.

 

The process took quite some time to refine as at the beginning there were some issues with tracking the book and unfortunately, a creator had lost one book but no more that 3 people had taken part who have all been contacted and would be happy to take part again. From this experience, i was able to create a little system in which I can track the books whereabouts at all times.

LOGO

I created this logo by editing friend's  faces (with their permission) in slices. Arranged properly, i made it create a whole face. I kept the face photos black and white because i didn't want to reveal too much about who they were. This reflects the idea of the book; each artist does not know the other, just their name. It is up to them to get in contact and collaborate or even just appreciate the works. The collaboration idea is also reflected in the logo as all of their faces make one, each spread by each artist, fills a whole books. Furthermore, the words are placed as they use letters of each word to form the entire name of the project.

The glitch-like effect I created using black, white and yellow box reflects what feels like a glitch in time, that is lockdown. 

After speaking to some creators who took part, the feed back I got was that they really liked the idea of the unknown; who would get the book and see their work. Quite a few people got in contact with each other through this project, and have worked together which is a lovely outcome to see.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND SPREADING THE WORD.

As part of this project, I have created an instagram page @The_Collective_Project_ where I can keep people updated and show a few pages of each book to help promote and share work as well as the project. itself. I am still in the process of building up followers and part takers but I am very happy with the beginning outcome!

Through this project, I have been lucky to have met some lovely people who have helped push the project further. I have collaborated with an amazing artist who helped me to create the next few books, binding them herself, creating amazing covers and keeping everything as green as can be!

I am hoping that when we get back to uni, I could use these books created to get more students involved!