Category: Blog Post

Throughout the process of focusing on this subject, it’s been challenging since it combines making things in 3D, and also having to be photographed, but because of this it’s also been super fun and one of the most experimental things I’ve done in terms of the subject and how I’m conveying this! Using the boilersuit as an astronaut’s overalls and wearing a biker jacket as the more protective gear, alongside with the helmet, was interesting in how I felt. I didn’t feel macho or masculine and I didn’t feel at all feminine either, I really only felt like an astronaut and only identified with that role, which in a way blurred the lines of gender. I drew on some makeup around the jaw cheeks for a more masc look, and in the last two images below I drew on a moustache, just since I wanted to play around more with drag. I did have the idea of wearing more of a drag get up for this, but didn’t want it to turn into a male astronaut or a drag king astronaut, I wanted it to remain in the middle. From what I said above, I wonder how it would feel to be an astronaut (as am I here) but without the bounds of Earth, and the questions surrounding gender from that experience. This reminds me of a book I’ve also been recommended by the Mission Gallery, ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ by Ursula K. Le Guin. The premise follows an ethnologist who observes the people of planet Gethen, where the inhabitants are androgynous. The main character struggles to navigate and adapt to the Gethens unique perspectives on gender and identity. Just something I’d like to read to garner more perspective on this.

How I’ve developed this so far, is putting myself in a familiar and natural environment that I’ve placed this astronaut figure in, I guess this is to put this figure more in the reality of my daily life. I also looked at images of astronauts in the space craft, just doing anything like sitting or playing with buttons, or floating, and applied that sort of environment in my home. In future, I plan to carry on with the idea of creating outer “armour”, as I’ve shown in past blogs, and to make environments, whether that is using props or creating it digitally. This will most likely be an on going project for me for quite a while, as the subject is a large part of my interests and expression.

Thank you Mission Gallery for giving me the opportunity to explore these themes on a platform, and being so supportive of what it is I’ve been doing, I’m truly grateful. And thank you to everyone who has read through my blogs!

I wanted to use polaroid film as well which helped me in just taking a photo and moving on instead of being indecisive on how it should be done. I also liked the immediacy of receiving the film and the old timey feel, to me it makes it feel more like an old documentation of an astronaut.

I used the cut out images as notes and to play around with different mediums.

Sketches are included from my notebook, I thought I’d just share them here since they’re part of what I was thinking about in terms of how I view this persona and my thoughts on how to approach it.

Taking the photographs, my sister took the role of the photographer and we just went around the house and Welsh landscapes to do this, she was very patient (thank you Lili). I considered using a backdrop, but couldn’t really find anywhere or anything for this, and I don’t own a green screen to edit in backdrops either. I also find it uncomfortable for the focus to be just on me. This is just an issue I have with taking photographs, so being in areas that had more around the space and the central focus wasn’t just on me made the process easier. Although a lot of the areas are overly crowded, for now they serve to be steps in what I could do using editing and photography. I would have liked to have played around with editing softwares and seen what I could’ve come up with, so far though I’ve used a few printed images and painted around them just as a rough idea playing with surrounding areas.

A really interesting artist I’ve come across is Mowgly Lee, who uses a combination of photography, painting and editing to create surrealist moving images. Particularly his ‘Theatre of Life’ work which can be found on his Instagram (link below). I’m more interested in using digital editing to further a character or a world or a concept. I’ve also mentioned Jon Rafman before, who uses a lot of digital softwares to create surreal techno based stories. On his website, you can watch multiple different films that have a videogame type format.

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The astronaut helmet was difficult to try and put together. Originally I was just looking for a glass bowl that could fit around the head, like the helmet used in the ‘Afronauts’ series and other examples I showed from sketches and collage images. Surprisingly it’s really difficult to find a head size bowl with an opening that is also head size. I managed to find a bowl that was head size but the opening was really small. To make this larger, I broke it and used a small glass cutter. To make this safe to wear I sanded it a bit and taped around the outside of it. Using foam role and superglue, I cut out a shape which would be able to stand on my shoulders, I did this for the front and the back, I also cut out a shape that would be able to go over the top of the glass. I used a heat gun to make this foldable, and foam clay as well for some of the top part of the glass. I then painted over this with white paint and a red line. I added a couple of accessories like a hair pin to the side which acts as some sort of an antenna, I also glued on a zip from a part of a jacket on the front. Although the outcome is really messy and quite disproportionate, it managed to actually be wearable which I’ve impressed myself with since making and working in 3D is not my strong suit! I also quite like how it conceals my face when I wear it, since the subject of this is more based around identity and gender, it makes more sense for the wearer to look a bit “ambiguous”.

I wanted to use materials I know even if the result isn’t really what an astronaut would wear, the whole process of this was using the astronaut as a point of masculinity and how it makes me feel. The progress so far may be messy but it is me.

The oxygen tank was made using a cardboard shoebox, cut up tubes placed on the side, a tube coming out the back, ties knotted in order to wear like a backpack and this patterned fabric used to cover the majority of the shoe box.

Putting together the outfit was a task, using a blue boiler suit I stitched and superglued some belongings on there which I already had to make the garment more personal. A polaroid of my dog, Welsh flag, a British flag, a children’s coloured circle, a letter badge (to stand for my name), gifted keyrings and a butterfly hair clip.