Stephanie Fung: Foundation at LCC - Brief 3

Foundation at LCC - Brief 3 - Kick It Out

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Project 3: The aim of this brief was to create a positive campaign for a type of discrimination.

I decided to highlight the problem of discrimination against body art. Discrimination is the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people.

I gained inspiration from reading articles about people who were rejected or treated differently because they had body art. The reasons for the discrimination is that it doesn’t comply with the presentation of the company, it wasn’t professional and it defaces the body. However, they were only discriminated if the tattoos were large and visible. Some people with small tattoos may not have the same problem because other people cannot see it.

Shirin Neshat is an artist who uses photography to show social, cultural and religious norms in Muslim societies. In her work for Rebellious Silence, she writes conflicting messages on her face to address her views towards the Muslim society. I enjoy the way she presents her work as it is very straight forward and thought provoking, thus I decided to similarly have my work to be visually empowering.

After attending various printing workshops (such as collagraphing, dry point etching, screen printing. lino printing and laserink jet) I found similarities between printing on skin to printing on paper. I was going to make a film showing the comparison between skin and paper showing how having a tattoo is not always a bad choice. However, there wasn’t a clear message I was trying to portray and it was not prominent enough to evoke questioning and emotions therefore I decided to move on from this idea.

The message I wanted to show to my audience is that “being professional should be how you act and not what you wear”, this lead to the idea of printing onto professional attire instead of printing onto paper. A shirt is socially accepted to be the uniform of a professional however it shouldn’t be forgotten that it doesn’t matter how smart a person looks if their attitude does not reflect a professional manner.

Inspired by Shirin Neshat and Jenny Holzer, I chose different tattoos to draw onto the shirt, whilst choosing a strapline saying, “am I a professional?” Most tattoos are subjective and have a meaning behind them; I think it’s unfair to disregard someone because they have something meaningful inked on to their skin. I think it is the same as having an accessory or clothing because it gives a person a form of identity.

Overall, I enjoyed the process to my final outcome. I feel that I was able to experiment extensively for this brief because I was able to attend the workshops. I am happy with my final outcome because it has a slight satirical humour to it and also presents a visually strong message. If I were to improve it I would create a “how to be a professional” uniform pack, where I would create a whole set of clothing filled with tattoos.