Protest! Gingerism is real.

For one of our classes we were given the brief of "Protest", to come up with a 2D piece that was a rant about something we felt strongly about. For this I picked Gingerism. It is more of an issue than people realise and that it can have more of an effect on a person than society is willing to recognise.

My first idea for this project, even before I had decided on what my topic was going to be, was that I wanted to create a picket sign as that is an obvious sign of protest. It is almost iconic to be placed alongside the topic of protests. But to not pigeon-hold myself too early I thought about creating a painting or a design that could be placed onto simple canvas or into a frame, but it brought me full circle to, "why can't I put this onto a picket sign?", so that has become my final piece idea.

Different ideas I had had for the themes was the media and how they portray things like, women's "beauty" and how they photoshop every image and the effect this has specifically on young girls and their fashion nowadays. I also thought about how social media almost fuels homophobia and the hateful "anonymous" comments you get. I thought about politics and the ways in which it is failing this country in particular but I know too little about politics and politicians to be able to create a whole project. An issue that I looked into was that of waste, and how land is being wasted to create more housing, create landfills, and in general kill the land and the animals that live on it. However I decided I wanted to focus on gingerism as it is something I have experienced myself, my sister has experienced and some of my friends and family as well, so I would have loads of first hand accounts to listen to and to use to create something powerful.

My main point is just to make it more commonly known. Not many people think about how their small comment about someones hair colour can be offensive, or showing that some people deem having ginger hair as being a bad thing and a cause for further bullying. The goal I want to achieve is to make people think about some of the comments they say to people and maybe having this span deeper into other hair colour stereotypes and bullying in general.

While researching I have found a website dedicated to the accounts of gingers being bullied and attacked for simply being ginger. http://gingerism.com/ So far I have only read some accounts but they seem to mostly have extreme outcomes, or at least the ones at the top were, leading to convictions.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/227R6QV

This is my survey to get the public's idea of how big an issue gingerism is and to find out more from people I wouldn't get to talk to. I hope to get around 50 realistically but will stop a little after that if it happens.

Why I love and hate London

For 3 days some of my class mates and I roamed around London. We visited 2 galleries and the Harry Potter museum in Leavesden and stayed in a hostel near Kings Cross. It was an experience and a half. 

On Monday the 16th:

It was my mother's birthday and some of the BAD2 students decided to stay in Edinburgh that night so as to be able to make it the Waverley station for half 6 due to trains being difficult to get so early. Everyone else got there for 7 but due to family plans I arrived around 9 and we stayed at CoDE, which was phenomenal. I always thought hostels were dirty places, full of strangers, a cheap place to be. But I was proved wrong right away. I thought it was amazing, having our own individual pods for beds, seemed so clean other than all of our cases everywhere, and so private with the codes to enter the rooms and even the entire hostel. It was around 10 we went to bed, but most of us didn't sleep till 11/12 due to just not being tired. However we didn't sleep long because at 4 in the morning the inhabitants of the room next door arrived, banging and yelling and laughing so loudly, we all woke up. So after 4 hours sleep at most, we all woke up and decided to just get ready and get out for 6. With no breakfast and no real sleep we headed straight to Waverley to meet the rest of our college group. 

Tuesday the 17th:

At quarter past 6, the 5 of us arrived at the Waverley to wait on the lecturers and other students, immediately we met some of the HND girls buying bagels making the others want to get some too, so we split, me and Zoe went to WHSmith and got some juice and met Rhonwyn the last of the BAD2. Eventually everyone arrived and we all got handed our tickets and headed for the train. It was a free for all kind of situation so we made sure to get 6 seats relatively close including a table. We were all so tired for the start of the journey it was mostly sleeping and listening to our own music. Catherine and Roisin decided to play card games the whole way and the rest of us talked, doodled, and tried to stay comfy on our 4 hour train ride. When we arrived in Kings Cross at around half 11 and we walked to the hostel, the Generator. It was so much more than I had ever expected, it had its own cafe, its own club/bar, its own cinema room, it was above and beyond. We couldn't go to the rooms right away so we left our stuff in the luggage room and decided to head to Leicester Square through the tube and so the art students went to the National Portrait Gallery and the media students went to a radio station. But after the lecturers showing us where the gallery was we went on a mad hunt for food, because some of us, including myself, hadn't eaten anything at all and it was already 2 o'clock. We found a small cafe across from Charing Cross station and we FINALLY got something to eat. After filling up we wandered to Trafalgar Square and took some quick pictures before we went into the gallery. We got to see the Grayson Perry exhibition that was on and I found some of the vases in particular to be disturbing, but I prefer art that I can tell the meaning of, it wasn't my taste. We saw modern art takes on portraiture and well, also were not my taste, work that looks like what it is meant to look like. But I can see some of the appeal. There was this one piece and the artist had created a sculpture of his face out of his own frozen blood. 8 pints of his own blood... controversial but pretty awesome to look at. There were so many amazing portraits so detailed and realistic it makes you crave to do something as incredible as that, and makes you sad you aren't at that point... not just yet anyway. When we had wandered all of the free exhibits we ended up shopping through China town and Catherine and I ended up buying Kimonos and after 10 short minutes I thoroughly regretted it and after feeling ill for most of these travels I told a lecturer that I wanted to return to the hostel and just relax after failing to be able to return the kimono... But 2 hours of nothing, lying on my bottom bunk in the unwanted kimono on the phone to my boyfriend I felt much better. While I lay there the other students were trying to see the red carpet of the premier of the Second Best Marigold Hotel and getting food from various restaurants.When they returned we all started to unpack and afterwards went downstairs for a few drinks and realised we were in dire need of rest so went to sleep. 

Wednesday the 18th:

Our first full day in London, and we had to be downstairs by 7 for our complimentary breakfast. Waking at 6 to be dressed and ready on time after little sleep again was pretty dire but we all made it through. That day was our Harry Potter day, getting a train to Watford Junction which was an extra £16.60 because we didn't use our oyster cards... But anyway, most of us made it onto the bus but others didn't including the lecturers... So they were mad... But we all waited and went in together and due to a student being in a wheelchair we got to go in through a side door before anyone else. So VIP. We saw some amazing props and scenes and got to try butterbeer - super sweet and topped by cream but was pretty good for the first few sips, but no-one could handle much more than that. I was especially taken aback by the detail of the sketches and machetes of the scenes and the props and the paintings of scenarios the concept artists created... they were beautiful. So detailed and just incredible. Now, if I could do that, I would die happy. I might just have to find out what that actually is. After all of the commotion throughout the tour, the amazing things we saw the store nearly wiped me out with the expensive prices on everything. Heading home we decided we wanted to visit the V&A gallery and so after going to the hostel to drop off our stuff and sit quietly for a half hour, we got back on the tube and wandered around that. seeing certain exhibits but after a while all we had was sore feet and shoulders. Luckily however we had booked dinner reservations for TGI Fridays at Covent Gardens and it was great to sit down, relax and laugh and eat all the food we could and have a lovely wee drink before we got seated at our table. Covent Gardens at night was beautiful with all the lights and the people and faint music. We ended up lost trying to get back to the tube but thankfully it was just us walking in big circles. We made it back and decided to have a few drinks in the hostel and it ended up being quite a bit more than a few for some of us. Zoe and Catherine sang "Love Is An Open Door" from Frozen on karaoke, a group of men with all different nationalities invaded our booth and tried to dance with us and sit with us all night, and Zoe left with an aussie's number during call me maybe. Most of us left at midnight to get some sleep but others partied the night away until 2. Although we had to be up to shower for our final day so again up at 6 with a broken sleep and being locked out at 5 running to the reception for a new key in my jammies. But it all went well in the end. 

Thursday the 19th, the final day:

Up at 6 to try to shower in the hostel, after trying 3 different ones and feeling like goldilocks. This one was too broke, this one was too cold, and this one was just right. We got downstairs and ate breakfast and tried to decipher how to get to our shopping destinations. Ending up going to Harrods to stare at the many expensive designer things, including the food, the designer food that cost more than my entire suitcase full of stuff. After walking through most of the store we walked, really far, to Oxford Street we went to primark, some of us wandered to Victoria's Secret but it was too busy to stay for too long and our feet hurt sooooo much. Once we managed all that plus a little jaunt through selfridges we ended up not having much time left so we headed straight for the tube back to the hostel to retrieve our luggage and to get some lunch. It wasn't too eventful for the ride back just being late for Edinburgh and needing to wait an hour for my next train home and to a bed I knew was clean and cosy and waiting for me. 

This trip taught me I don't like to walk. But it also taught me to branch out with my work. A bartender questioned whether my art involved music and that made me question whether that was an idea I could follow with my work. I saw so many amazing paintings and sculptures and artworks and it inspired me so much. And now, I know London is incredible and beautiful and just so busy. We'd need so much more time to do everything and not having all of us want to collapse from our aching feet, legs, shoulders, backs.