Initially I went into the tutorial a bit unsure of what I wanted to do for the practical work. Since the last peer review, I have chosen to step back from my initial proposal of creating a publication for children because I felt I needed to investigate the topic through drawing more.
We discussed what my intentions were for the practical - I knew I still wanted to educate/create awareness of gender identity through my images and I'm sure I would just get lost/confused with a more open-ended project. At the moment I am moving away from the idea of targeting children and thinking that Young adults/teens would be more appropriate. This decision is based on my experience with 16 year olds and how I've noticed that once people leave secondary school, they feel more able to talk about/acknowledge their sexuality or gender identity. I'm interested in focusing on those pivotal points in a person's life, when they're making decisions about themselves and figuring out how they fit into the world.
Fred pointed out this image which I hadn't really thought about taking further. It's interesting because you can't really tell whether it's a very feminine man or very masculine woman. I really like the concept of androgyny and I think that in order for people to ignore gender stereotypes/expectations, we need to see more androgynous characters in the media.
I am thinking about creating some sort of awareness campaign aimed towards 16 to 18 year olds to try and get them to be more open to gender fluidity so that individuals who struggle with their gender identity, don't feel so pressured to conforming to the binary. As of now, I'm not sure what context these images will fit in - as Fred suggested, it could potentially be for an androgynous make-up line. I'm interested in exploring products aimed towards a specific gender, so that's what I'll be researching next.
For the written aspect of this work, I feel like I am on track but only if I keep this momentum. I need another 3500 words for the next tutorial in two weeks. I'm a little stressed about it, but mostly because the first chapter is proving more difficult to write than I initially anticipated - mostly because it is such a broad chapter so organising information and references is taking a while.
ACTION PLAN:
- Explore androgyny in sketchbook
- Start writing second chapter of essay
- Research gender specific products
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