A Change Of Heart

For our second area induction project we were set a brief about Old English Idioms. We were asked to chose an idiom and interpret it in a new, innovative and visual way for a contemporary audience. The images we created also had to take the format of a square. After careful consideration, I narrowed down my choice of idiom to the following:

• A leopard can never change its spots
• To take a stroll down memory lane
• To have a change of heart

Mindmap
I wanted to illustrate these idioms with the first image that I associated them with

Initial sample deisgns/compositions

I decided to work with the idiom 'Have a change of heart' because I could apply this in a wide variety of contexts. For my project I focused on three possible interpretations of this idiom: I explored its meaning in the context of literally having a change of heart and linked this to the topic of Heart Transplants and Organ Donation; I looked at the damaging effects of smoking on the heart and what problems this could cause; and finally an emotional change of heart about a person, subject, item or placee- these types of articles are usually found as editorial in magazines and are often structured as 'Agony Aunt Advice Collums'; my aim was therefore to create images to represent these three contextual environments in which my idiom could be explored.

Stitching

For my 'Agony Aunt Editorial' image I decided to stitch into drawings and paintings of the human heart that I had done, I thought the stitches themselves could represent medical stitches that a person has aftter cutting a certain part of their hand for example, too deeply, I specifically chose blue, red and black coloured thread to represent arteries, veins and capillaries that carry the blood from the heart around the various parts of the body.

This is an example of one of my stitched Hearts, the fibrous threads dangling from the centre create quite a nice effect in the sense that the Heart looks as it has connections which spam across each and every part of it to the body.

Projection Photography

I transferred drawings and paitnings of the human heart that I had done onto acetate and projected these onto the bodies and faces of my models. I organised three seperate photoshoots to represent each of the contexts that I was exploring and placing my idiom in.

Agony Aunt Editorial Development pieces and Ideas

'Kill Smoking'

This was the second context that I was placing my idiom in- Raising awareness of how bad smoking is for the heart by projecting a painting of a human heart onto the bare back of my model- the idea behind this was to envoke interest and awareness at the fact that smoking damages the heart. The main concept however elludes to the fact that smoking can lead to heart damage and ultimatly heart failure- the heart would therefore need a literal 'change'.

Heart Transplant