Tutorial #2

Today I had another tutorial (I had one before this so it's technically #3 but the other was to talk about my housing/life situation not my project)! We spoke about a number of things and I found this really helpful in drawing out some ideas and questions I normally wouldn't have thought about.

One of the big questions she had was why did I pick alternative people?

I answered saying I am part of this community, and have been for a long time. People often brush over us because we don't follow the norm, our music isn't broadcasted the way pop music is, our fashion is completely different to that you'd find on Pretty Little Thing for example, that "alternative" is a wide umbrella - you can be goth, metal, punk, indie, grunge, glam rock, rock n roll. There are so many more because it's based around the music - for example I would class myself as a metalhead because that makes up the bulk of what I listen to. I've seen the last 10 years of our community so I feel I can confidently create a project around not just my own experiences but around the people who have volunteered for the project too.

We briefly spoke about the men not joining the project meaning I could steer this in more feminist direction. I had 31 women join the project - we spoke about how I can give these women and my community a voice that is not normally seen and that's why I had so many sign up.

Instagram and the photos the women sent me were mentioned as it's interesting how we want other people to see us rather then how we actually are.

We also spoke about how whitewashed my project is - I've had no black or other women of colour volunteer and I'm not entirely sure why. Did my project not reach the right people? If it did, did they feel they couldn't join? Does it fall into the fact alternative POC women are constantly pushed out of our communities by men or is simply just it didn't reach the right people?

We also spoke about the fact social media has massively helped my project out this year, and about maybe using social media to further the project - for example using TikTok to maybe show off the project. My generation are criticized for everything, we literally cannot do anything right so maybe there is a certain freedom in just posting what we want and making whatever content we want, which she felt my project could do. Almost like holding a rebellious value in it?

One of the things we both agreed on is that this could be a good chance to explore some of the alternative communities problems. Sexism, racism, gatekeeping and host of other issues are persistent in our spaces and difficult conversations need to be had, which my artwork could inspire.

Overall it gave me a lot of think about and another flash of inspiration - I might try to interview some of the women in scene to try and see their feelings on the matter.