SHOREDITCH
HISTORY:
Shoreditch is an inner city neighbourhood in the east which used to be an area of poverty, the working class, and the textile/furniture industry. It was colonised by artists in the early 1900's, because of this, cafe culture flourished and became trendy, then businesses moved in which all ultimately led to rent going up.
ARTISTS were the inhabitants who gave shoreditch the character that it still holds today, this is evident in the street art movement that rides the neighbourhood, alongside trendy bars and shops. When the textile and furniture industry went bust in the early 1900's, artists then moved into the warehouses which were supporting local businesses - this is why a lot of these factories are still there today.
DEVELOPMENT
Poverty began to be replaced by business and bar owners from the rest of the city.
'YOU'D GO THERE AND SMELL THE FUTURE.' - Ernesto Leal
POLITICALLY:
I was reading an article discussing whether or not Shoreditch had seen it's last few days of style and underground edginess, Ernesto Leal was looking back on the 80's and 90's and how the regeneration of Shoreditch was a good thing.
https://www.theresident.co.uk/london-culture-events/the-last-days-shoreditch-regeneration/
An interesting point was raised about the political instability within the 80's and how the regeneration changed this - due to the vast amount of change that occurred, I think looking into this idea of LAYERING could be really interesting. As I feel Shoreditch is being constantly layered upon to keep up with the latest trends etc, so I will look to see if there is any visual evidence of this.
DOUGIE WALLACE
Photographer I came across when looking for books in the library, he created a book called 'SHOREDITCH WILDLIFE' - which documents the extreme variety of street life within the dynamic place of Shoreditch.
I loved flicking through this book and seeing the array of people, moods, colour and activity. It pretty much summarises Shoreditch's dynamic quality within most areas. The main thing I picked up on within the photographs is the energy that they held, I think this is something really important that I must try and capture within my prints whether its through the use of colour or shapes.
Culturally, Shoreditch clearly used to be much more diverse than it is now. It was an area where cultures could flourish and express themselves without judgement, now, even when visiting it I could tell that it has become a lot more materialistic and upperclass. 'Hipsters' dominate, so again, this concept of 'LAYERING' comes up again, not only do the walls have a considerable amount of layering on them, but cultures have changed - and one specific culture has been layered on top.
Ultimately Dougie's photographs have solidified that I need to really consider: COLOUR, TREND AND CHARACTER.
Vitturi's use of colour and shape to convey energy is something that I think works really well - it allows the audience to immediately know that the atmosphere of this location is lively - I will definitely consider this when choosing my colour palette and shapes.
HASSAN HAJJAJ
Hajjaj is a contemporary artist who lives and works between Morocco and London. His photography, bold prints and film are his most recognisable assests, I was most drawn to his use of colour and how he carefully chooses colour to represent a culture or person.
His collection 'KESH ANGELS' focuses on arabic women within Morocco and how he is trying to subvert the preconceived ideas about the way they live. At first glance, I view these women as powerful, confident, and extremely chic due to the bold prints that they're wearing which are from North African harb. This is Hajjaj playing with the stereo types that western culture hold, he is using his love for fashion photography and print to do so which I think is so special.
The main reason I think Hajjaj's work is so successful is because of his catching choice of colour- colour is something I have really tried to explore when looking into Shoreditch. I have analysed my pictures to see what is most frequent, but then chosen the best mixtures purely based on aesthetic. When I came across his prints I realised how important it is so choose colour which represents a place to it's full potential. Think about symbolism of colour and how an audience would react, to his prints my main feeling towards them is confidence.
STUART LANTRY
I came across Lantry when researching into artists who are interested with layering and how it can tell a story, weirdly a lot of the pieces I wanted to analyse were blurry from a galleries website so here are some ones that retained some detail.
Lantry's interest in layering is very alike to mine - he believes walls of a community are 'SEMI PERMANENT DOCUMENTS OF CULTURE.' Which is EXACTLY what I thought when observing the walls of shoreditch. He travelled many places and analysed the layering on walls, looking at social hierarchies, laws and priorities of the people. Despite Lantry's contextual research, his work is rather simplified and merely focuses on the shapes that he has seen. This way of approaching layering is something I have embodied myself.
Exploring the connection between a wall and the culture around it is something that can be so rich in information, when researching into Lantry I discovered the things that he pin points, texture, material and history of colour. By minimising myself to specific elements to explore I think this layering concept could be really effective, if I try to use all the information I have then the samples may become too overcrowded and chaotic. Lantry's simplifying methods were very useful to find.
HISTORY OF MATERIALS
MATERIAL/FURNITURE INDUSTRIES
Referencing from: 'BEHIND THE VENEER, ENGLISH HERITAGE.'
The east end furniture trade was in its prime between 1860-1945, design, marketing and manufacturing were extremely prominent. The furniture district was located in South Shoreditch and was the primary spot in London for trading these goods - therefore, TEXTILES AND MATERIAL are huge attributes to Shoreditch's history so this is an area I will definitely try to explore when I visit.
THE DECLINE:
WW2 was the largest disruption to the furniture and textile trade, many firms moved to aircraft manufacturing and many were in fact damaged by bombs. This decline increased rapidly, as by the 1980's the English furniture was in complete crisis, unable to compete with cheaper trading across the world.
I thought this diagram was interesting as it highlights how relevant this area of trading was historically in Shoreditch.
LORENZO VITTURI
One of Vitturi's collections - DALSTON ANATOMY really caught my eye due to the way he expresses his personal experience of a place through colour, shape and choice of material. He was visually celebrating Ridley Rose market in London which is a very culturally exciting place, I felt like this collection would be good to look at as Shoreditch is also very vibrant, so seeing how he is expressing this is useful.
'GREEN STRIPES #1'
Vitturi visited the market daily, observing the market, its communities and how it would rapidly change every day. Due to the drastic change that was occurring, he wanted to look into this idea of 'TRANSFORMATION' so began actually collecting objects from around the market and from people who he encountered. Something I really like about this is his eagerness to delve deep into the community and not just look at the area from it's surface.
He chose some natural objects to work with when creating his sculptures, the reason for this was to capture this idea of production, deconstruction and reproduction. This is the main thing he noticed about the market: CHANGE so he wanted to convey this. The way in which he links his observation to his visual outcome really unique and subtle, I like that it's not obvious which area he is trying to display in his sculptures, he focuses more on the emotions he felt and how to convey this. I can see myself doing something similar within the concept of LAYERING and how Shoreditch has been continuously morphing to fit the trends of the time.
LOOKING INTO LAYERING
(Lots of the walls in Shoreditch were coated in layers of old posters, art and political messages).
VISIT TO CRESCENT TRADING (Very large fabric supplier: Brick Lane)
Spitafields last cloth warehouse had been on quaker street supplying fabric merchants with top quality, this was unfortunately burnt down in a devastating fire but PHILIP PITTACK and MARTIN WHITE rose their business from the ashes and are now extremely successful suppliers to high brands. I spoke to Philip about the warehouse, he said he regarded it as an 'extremely historic and intriguing place,' this is clear from the high ceilings and absolute mass amount of fabric, it was overwhelming. Visiting places like these solidified to me that the textile/fabric trade that originated in Shoreditch is definitely an area I want to explore through shape and texture in my samples.
SUE HOTCHKINS
Hotchkins is a Textile designer who focuses on texture, surface and space - much like I am doing. As evident in the piece, 'BLOWN' above, Hotchkins uses a variety of different methods to create these multi media pieces. This is what drew me to her work so much. She is hugely influenced by the environment so captures images of places she has been to then transfer this into her textural outlook. For this piece in particular, Hotchkins has dyed or hand painted cloth, then screen prints her mark making. On top of this, further embroidery or free stitch on a machine takes place to create finer detail, intricacy is something that i think is really key in textile pieces which are heavily focused on surfaces. Having large areas of texture in contrast to small intricate stitching can look really effective. I already try and use this contrast, however after looking at its success in Hotchkins work I will try to embody this more.