Project

Proposal: Centerpoint

For my final integrating activity project, I will be creating a collection of digital collages primarily using pictures I will take myself. Throughout my four semesters at Dawson College exploring the visual arts, both photography and collage have become alluring mediums that I am excited to take one step further with this project’s creative freedom.

Entitled Centerpoint, my collection will consist of five to six unique digital collages, their designs centered around the idea of ‘connection’ following this year’s LEAP festival theme. However, my work will express the value of physical connection, both to our own bodies, as well as to each other.

During the past year of enduring the coronavirus pandemic, social distancing has rendered physical touch relatively impossible. Hence, considering young people spend a significant portion of our time interacting online, I feel like we are increasingly attaching significance to deceptive online personas, resulting in a disconnect from our own physical qualities. On top of that, a prevailing culture in these online spaces is one that promotes unrealistic body images—leading us to develop a negative connection to our body, even though we are in it all the time.

For that reason, I will be using a camera to capture ordinary people, making them the focal point of my digital collages. Afterwards, by incorporating colors, textures and other depictions of nature through the medium of collage, my works will be evocative of the senses and the human experience—bodies being at the center of their creations. Hence, by aesthetically capturing images of the body and juxtaposing them with the artistic techniques I have learned in my art classes, I hope to unveil its vital soulful importance as well.

In summary, my project will reject the toxic online culture of unrealistic body imagery that actively disconnects us from our own bodies, by highlighting our physical forms and serving as a reminder of their power—especially as confinement continues. Once completed, my collages will be posted on my website and social media, to reshape the online spaces that I feel are contributing to this issue.

Previous Digital Collage

Schedule

Week of March 28th

Mood boarding for inspiration.

Preliminary search of pose ideas, shooting locations and possible props or model outfits.

Week of April 4th

Finalized plan for shoots (List of props, color palettes, poses and shooting locations).

Week of April 11th

Shooting with 2 models + Other images to use in collages.

Week of April 18th

First drafts of each collage.

Week of April 25th

Edits and finishing touches for final drafts of each collage.

Week of May 2nd

Upload of collages + addition of collage titles and summaries to website.
Upload of collages to Instagram.

Required Materials / Software / Permissions

Procreate (iOS application), my digital camera, and consent from my models to post pictures of them online. No other permissions required.

Work for inspiration by Simply Whyte Design