A Common Thread
Gould Passion Project 2021-2022
ABOUT A COMMON THREAD
I’ve always been captivated by human individuality. For the first assignment in my New Media Research Studio class, my professor assigned our class to create an interactive design within a video game engine to introduce ourselves to our class. When we presented, we had all interpreted the assignment differently. I had created an interactive gallery exhibit where every virtual symbol enabled a text box about a part of my life. Another person used the visual symbols to create a giant self-portrait of themself. Another student used them to illustrate their life story from birth until now using symbols. I liked how with the same instructions, everyone’s projects turned out completely different.
In my eyes, photography mirrors this phenomenon. Each frame freezes a moment. However, if multiple photographers were to photograph the same object or subject, each image would turn out differently, even if it is in the most minute way. I love that photography allows the presentation of expression of the featured subject, but also of the photographer as well.
For my project, I developed my photography skills while investigating interpretation and how individuals interact with a selected medium. In creating a photo essay about humans and their relationship to objects, I will give the participants and photo subjects creative freedom to take yarn and do whatever they want with it. I will then photograph what they choose. Each frame and image encapsulates a person's essence. When dictated what the limited elements are, I hope to find a common “thread” and through-line as well as diversity and differences of expression and personal choice through this project.
PROMPT:
With the yarn of your choice, create a scene that tells a story. You have absolute creative freedom over where you tell this story, how you tell it, and why. I will do my best to convey it through photography.
CHELSEA
For Chelsea's photo series, her vision was to visually capture her experience in the COVID-19 pandemic in which she felt entangled in invisible restraints. The inability to attend school in person, visit friends freely, etc. led to the feelings associated with isolation and containment. However, Chelsea turned sixteen during the pandemic and earned her drivers license. Like many others who found solace on long drives to get out of the house, the car became her own choice of escapism.
To convey this message, she imagined B&W edited photos in which the yarn served as these newly visible restraints she felt. Looping the yarn through the steering wheel, around her seat, on the mirrors, etc., Chelsea aimed to visually describe how even in this environment of escape, the threads of the pandemic still weighed on everything she did. Thus, she wanted to illustrate her experience through a darker, truthful lens. For her wardrobe, she wore black to juxtapose the white yarn she selected. As the subject model in these shots, she posed with the yarn with a solemn expression, looping the yarn around her wrists and neck to depict her feelings over the past two years.
SUBJECT 1
PROMPT:
With the yarn of your choice, create a scene that tells a story. You have absolute creative freedom over where you tell this story, how you tell it, and why. I will do my best to convey it through photography.
MELISSA
Melissa took an extremely artistic and metaphorical approach to her interpretation to this prompt. Her concept aimed to illustrate a form of rebirth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, she always loved creating art whether it was illustrations, design, or other forms of traditional art. Eventually, she was gifted an iPad and began creating digital art. During the pandemic and in the time of isolation and quarantine, Melissa took the opportunity of the time at home to launch her own online store titled "Amuseboosh" and began to sell her artwork. It has been nearly one year since its launch and she has garnered thousands of followers, has been featured in the Walt Disney Family Museum, and joined a community of artists on Instagram who she has since met in person with.
With these photos, she used the yarn to outline her body to represent a past version of herself. The yarn extended to wrap around her and draped around her leading to her iPad. Her vision was a symbolic tribute to this new beginning in the pandemic through creative expression. Her color palette in wardrobe and yarn warm, with yellow and pink string to compliment her yellow and tan clothes.
As for the location, the shots with the outline were taken with her sitting on a bench in one of her favorite parks and another frequent environment of escape in quarantine. In the two shots to the right, she posed with statues in the park to further represent her becoming one with art.
SUBJECT 2
SUBJECT 3
JOSEPHINE
This subject was much different than the others, of course. Josephine is a 16-month-old girl with an extreme amount of energy and a playful attitude. I thought it would be fun to incorporate a younger subject into this project to see how they interpreted the same instructions.
Contrary to thought-out, symbolic interpretations like Melissa's, Josephine simply continued dancing as she was before we took photos. She experimented with the yarn in much more of a sensory way. She played with the soft texture, arranged it on her head, and even tasted it. All of these photos were fun to capture, as she was in constant motion and was constantly playing with it in new ways. I was happy to get a child-like perspective on the same instructions that teenagers and adults got and felt I was able to capture her young mind's imagination and spirited attitude.
SUBJECT 4
PROMPT:
With the yarn of your choice, create a scene that tells a story. You have absolute creative freedom over where you tell this story, how you tell it, and why. I will do my best to convey it through photography.
ROB
Josephine wasn't the only one with a playful spirit. When given the extremely open-ended instructions, Rob opted to use the rolls of yarn that, in his imagination, resembled horns. Rather than choosing a specific location or wardrobe, he used whatever was available in the moment and relied more on expressions to tell a story of who he is as an individual.
One of the things I loved most about this project was getting to see and capture who everyone is as an individual. It was so fun seeing how beyond interpretations, creativity, and understandings, I was able to get an insight on individuality. I think Rob's photo series is a prime example of this. When comparing Rob's free-spirited, goofy photos to Melissa's metaphorical and deeper photos, you can truly learn a lot about the person through this experiment. Both were given the same instructions and they produced completely different results.
SUBJECT 5
PROMPT:
With the yarn of your choice, create a scene that tells a story. You have absolute creative freedom over where you tell this story, how you tell it, and why. I will do my best to convey it through photography.
SABRINA
When first thinking about this project, I didn't think I would be a subject within it. However, I found myself thinking what I would do while photographing others and decided that I would venture out of my comfort zone. With photography, I am much more comfortable behind the camera. However, photography is way more than the person behind the camera. Especially with portrait photography, the model and subject can be everything. I decided to give it a try and focused on expression, storytelling, and presenting my own experiences through photography.
For my concept, I wanted to do a series of photos of the yarn falling from the inside of an umbrella. Sometimes, I find that a lot of anxieties I have gotten are my own doing. I wanted to illustrate this internal experience through a raining-only-under-the-umbrella concept. Sometimes I try to shield myself from threats that don't even exist, and in the process only cause myself worry. To show this, I was fortunate that the day we shot photos was a sunny one. I wanted to present this mood of a warm, sunny day juxtaposed with a glum expression under a raining umbrella.
