Curatorial Rationale

By presenting my work I am hoping to unnerve and intimidate the viewers through my depiction of vulnerability in varying degrees and presentations, specifically the lack of safety and the consequences it holds. The ideas for these works came from my personal research in understanding people’s attraction to disturbing or un-conventional content, by creating it myself. During that time I was facing pressures of dealing with school and felt desensitised to things or events I would usually enjoy. When trying to analyse the previously mentioned “gore” content and evaluating in-depth about it’s unexplainable attractiveness, I noticed a similarity between the two. In my work I decided to focus further on the idea of vulnerability, instead of depicting gruesome and incredibly obvious instances of gore, I want to focus entirely on the feeling of vulnerability in its pure form.

My vision for presenting this body of work is to present an array of compositions where the motif of vulnerability is present, ranging from obvious signs of it, to cases which could be counterintuitive. I also want viewers to enjoy the diversity between the mediums and techniques used and recognise the details and versatility of my work as I have put a lot of effort into corroborating all pieces of one work to ensure the visual composition achieves the message I am trying to convey.

After uncovering the idea of vulnerability from my experiences of stress with mental fatigue and gore content, I wanted to see how it also appears in other topics I am interested in. Delving further into topics of interest, ranging from contemporary ideals to current political news. Upon closer inspection I could identify that the state of vulnerability or being unsafe are very common. It further encouraged me to experiment with materials, ideas and art forms as I knew I could translate this theme in many different scenarios but still have it as a consistent factor. In my work, in order to have a specific theme to be identified, I began with a large idea such as “Vulnerability” and imbued instances or inspirations from personal experiences or events I came across in order to provide a concrete example. This also opens a potential for people who share my experiences, to relate my work to their own lives.

Artworks are exhibited in an order which will help subtly tie the pieces together, whilst adapting to the physical limitations of the space given. When ordering my pieces in the exhibit, I prioritised that the pieces placed next to each other have physical attributes which are similar. For example my mask is placed next to the piece “Don’t crack under pressure”, this is because the mask is made out of neutral tone cardboard, and the piece next to it is framed by a wooden frame. Even though pieces are vastly different in all of their aspects, these small attributes allow consistency for the viewer when switching between works. By showcasing the various artworks depicting the theme of vulnerability it allows for different impressions of my work to be made. However it still subtly ties them together by accumulating all the impressions and understandings built, and carrying on the common theme of the exhibition.

Through observing some of my graphic pieces, I would want my audience to be discomforted by subject matter. Whilst in others I would want them to be sympathetic to the story told and reference them to their own stories. Additionally, the way the 3D pieces are presented allows the audience to observe them from various sides, and also understand the function. I want to make it challenging for my audience to find a direct link between all of my works. Apart from the viewers spending more time trying to grasp the topic of my work, allowing them to spend more time appreciating and observing my work - it will also promote more interpretations and unique ideas.

By showcasing different instances of where vulnerability is present, I want the audience to recognise how multi-faceted the feeling of vulnerability is, and that it doesn’t fit under a specific understanding of being “bad” or “good” - but rather an experience everyone shares at least at one point in their life.