Welcome Collection:
The first gallery I visited was the Welcome Collection museum where I visited the 'A Museum of Modern Nature' and 'Medicine Now' exhibitions. Originally, I came to this museum to see the 'Can Graphic Design Save Your Life?' exhibition, unfortunately, this display hadn't opened yet, however, I am glad that I stayed and viewed the rest of the museum.
In 'Medicine Now' I found the displays very interesting, with a mixture of 3D objects representing the human form and associating with medical practice. Including showcases of actual human anatomy and synthetic representations and the tranquil, clinical feel of the exhibition reinforced the content.
Referring back to my brief, I thought of ways I could include inspiration from these exhibitions in my statement and thought taking a more anatomical, health orientated route could be thought-provoking, such as the contrasting food and health epidemics from around the world; starvation and obesity, or the heavy addiction growth surrounding prescription drugs.
The second display I visited in the Welcome Collect was 'A Museum of Modern Nature', exploring nature and how we can still be in touch with a more organic world, even in the chaotic, bustling lives of Londoners. The displays included items which have been donated by individuals, all from London, and each comes with a personal story of how the object helped the previous owner connect with nature. The exhibitions show how even small aspects of a city-based individual still relate to nature, and how subtle nature is in the city but it is still there.
A piece that really stood out to me was a large wall-type display, collaged with everyday items, animals, plants, natural sightings, residential houses and large buildings. This display made me think about gentrification, which is something I've been in disagreement with for quite a while and I find very interesting to learn about places, such as Brixton, going through this change. Gentrification is the process of renovating a district to conform to middle-class taste but unfortunately, this also means evicting many original residents who cannot afford these new "improvements" and overall taking away the history and culture of the area. Although this branches out from the original point of this exhibition, I think this idea could be very interesting to explore.
Saatchi Gallery:
I visited the 'Selfie' exhibition in the Chelsea gallery, which features the history of a selfie in artwork and a wide variety of digital self-portraits and self-expression, representing many identities and themes. The display included digital 'selfie' entries for Saatchi's interactive competition, #SaatchiSelfie, these explored themes of self-love and even satire, such as an image of the current US president posing with models in bikinis for a selfie.
An interesting feature of the exhibition was self-portraits from acclaimed artists; such as Frida Kahlo, Egon Schiele, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, incorporated into the contemporary digital world by presenting the portraits on digital screens which were linked to iPhones in the form of a mock-up Instagram which you could interact and 'like' the images, exploring the theory of postmodernism. I really liked this display and though further exploring postmodernism could be really interesting and allowing for a wide exploration.
I found this exhibition and the powerful images it displayed very stimulating with interesting interactive features, inspiring me to consider themes of female empowerment, technology, portraiture and satire to make a statement in my work.
