Bianca Alexander

Out of all the blog posts I have read and looked at, I decided to write a peer review on Imogen Haggath’s third blog post.

In this blog post Imogen wrote about how they are a hair and makeup student just like myself, but the difference is Imogen is a hair and makeup student for fashion whereas I am a hair, makeup and prosthetics student for theatre and performance. I really liked how they differentiated the two, which showed a great amount of understanding that Imogen had for both courses, I also found it quite interesting how Imogen, as a fashion makeup student decided to further their knowledge, by picking a course so similar to their own when they could have chosen something completely different, which would have given them a different perspective of another courses like, mask making, fashion styling and more.

Within Imogen’s blog post about makeup for performance, they wrote about the character idea that they had, and wanted to create, explaining how, this character would look and how they would have adapted to their surroundings e.g. adapted to a world or environment where the sun has damaged their skin, which makes me think of how some lizards and animals have adapted to dessert like environments. Imogen also talked about a peers piece of work, a mermaid that has evolved into having hair, which wouldn’t be necessary some thought as hair is not needed under the sea, with their evidence being that fish do not have hair.

These Ideas and character designs that Imogen and their peers came up with are incredibly detailed and out of the box, it shows how much research and thought has gone into their work, which thoroughly explores sustainability.

However, as Imogen was not able to actually make their ideas come to life on an actual model, I believe if they got the chance to, that’s where they could explore diversity and culture a bit more, This can be explored when it comes to picking a model to present their work. Imogen could either pick models that come from areas where the sun is quite harsh around them (Or an area where global warming has effected the most), which would further show how people from hot countries have adapted with their sun damaged appearance becoming an addition to their culture and a new way of life, or Imogen could choose a model that’s from a colder area, to show how they would have adapted to being exposed to a hotter environment without having the cultural knowledge to prevent themselves from burning in the sun.

Overall, I really liked Imogen’s, character design and I would really love to see it come to life. Their views and ideas on adaptability and sustainability has really opened my eyes to more, then just scratching the surface of what I can do.

Imogen’s blog post

For the better lives individual project, I chose to learn about mask making.

Within the mask making project I was taught the basics history of masks, how to make them and more. After that I was given the actual project for the mask making course, which was to create a mask inspired by a political event.

The political event I chose to focus on was the coronavirus. As it was slowly taking the nation by storm,  I found that the majority of people started to wear masks to protect themselves from the virus, however it wasn’t long before the masks they used, ran out in shops, which resulted in people taking it upon themselves to create their own types of mask out of desperation. Which showed the extreme lengths that most people would go to, to protect themselves. However I found it weird how little attention people really paid to theses mask, As even if that person was infected or not they would still go so close to them not taking into consideration personal space and how easily the virus can spread. From this I wanted to create a mask that reinforced personal space, along with notifying people that the person wearing the mask is infected. In the end I came up with a dead bloated face mask, which was greatly inspired by the plague doctors mask, The dead bloated face masks would almost scare people into not coming near along with telling people that the wearer of the mask is infected, and just like the plague doctor mask which had lavender in the long beak area (said to prevent the wearer from getting the plague) my mask would have herbs and vitamin C in some areas of the mask which is said to help fight the virus.

Before the pandemic, I quite enjoyed making the mask at Lime grove out of clay, It was a very therapeutic and fun experience to actually make your piece and vision come to life. However when the pandemic took over, the mask making brief was slightly changed, instead of thinking rationally about materials that we have and could use for example my mask was going to be made from vacuumed sealed plastic, we could now think outside of the box, and use materials like glass, wood, fiberglass and more, as our design would now be conceptual. However my idea pretty much stayed the same, but giving it some more thought and using what I’ve learnt these past few weeks from the better lives lectures, focusing on sustainability, diversity and social responsibility, I think it’d be a great idea to use a more sustainable material to make my product out of, like from the rubbish that has bombarded the sea turning it into a dangerous mess for sea life, Or by using Materials locally sourced from other countries used to make objects that identify their culture.   

Throughout the whole two weeks of watching lectures I‘ve learnt many things which I’ve stated in my first blog post, And as a Hair, makeup and prosthetics for performance student I believe these lectures and what I’ve learnt from them will greatly improve my work and ideas.

The knowledge that I have learnt can be applied to my course through many ways, for example.

Within makeup for performance I will need to work on a range of different people portraying  theatrical ideas through makeup by creating character designs and much more, However with the knowledge I’ve gained from the Culture studies lecture, I now have a better understanding that I shouldn’t Just stick to the norms of what my culture has taught me and sees as a stereotype, for example If I was to create a character design for a witch, My cultural stereotype portrays a witch as having Green skin, a long nose, multiple moles, a broomstick, cat and more, Which isn’t the same for other people’s cultures. Some cultures teach people that a witch looks like an everyday normal person, with a beautiful appearance instead of an ugly one.

Therefore, widening my culture and looking into other people’s cultures, by researching and understanding them will help shape my character designs making them culturally diverse.

As for the Nature lecture, when using different makeup products, like lipsticks, mac foundation, blush and more I could look more into where these products came from and how they were made, to see if I could find a more sustainable and more environmentally friendly alternative. Taking consideration for the environment and finding alternative options will help make my products last longer as the materials and ingredients used to make my product won’t have to abuse where it has come from, which links back to what I took from the culture studies lecture.

“However, what I took from this lecture was the sustainability of our culture and how if we stop using one thing like makeup for example something else would be used in it’s place therefore continuing a cycle, we’re already in.”

Therefore, even if I opt for a more environmentally friendly makeup alternative, it still won’t stop the cycle of something else being used in its place. For example, some makeup brands use Carmine in their lipsticks and blush products which is a bright red dye made from crushed scale insects, typically cochineal or Polish cochineal insects. If this product were substituted with something else to make it more environmentally friendly and sustainable that product would then be used and abused just like the crushed insects used for lipsticks and blushes.

However, even though this cycle will constantly change and continue, hopefully it will become a better cycle as it will be less damaging to the environment.

During the two weeks of watching lectures I’ve learnt many things to do with;

Nature and how our own natural and organic resources such as trees, cotton, fur etc can destroy us, as we need them just as bad as they need us, Easter island being a good example of that.

Our own Perspective and how it’s solely dependent on us, being that our culture and other peoples culture shape trends as no one has a Global perspective.

And much more, However I believe I learnt much more from the lectures on Power and Culture.

What Did I learn from the Power lecture?

Well, I learnt that Power is everywhere. And in everything. Fashion, people, nature, culture, perspective, EVERYTHING. But at different levels. For example, Fashion and Big business brands like Nike, Gucci, Ted Baker and more have power over the workers that work day and night making their products, for us to then to buy, to which they get very little pay for compared to their CEO’s. In fact, I found it incredibly shocking when I was told in the lecture that CEO’s make an ordinary workers pay for one year in one day. Which shows just how much the power in fashion has given people. However even though fashion has given CEO’s this much power, I believe the consumers have more power over fashion and the CEO’s that create products. My reason being because at the end of the day it is up to the consumer whether they like the product and want to buy it, Brands and CEO’s can only listen to our fashionable desires and produce it. As there have been multiple occasions when a brand hasn’t lived up to expectations and has either been boycotted, protested against, vandalised and more, which solidifies my point

What Did I learn from the Culture lecture?

What I learnt from the Culture lecture was that our culture is taught, and that it can be both materialistic and not. Fashion and makeup being a good example is apart of our culture, it is something we learn about from a young age. We are taught about clothes and which ones look nicer and which ones are more money. Same being with makeup it is advertised everywhere on Tv, social media, and some of our role models wear it, which normalises it. From a young age I was taught that makeup wasn’t a good thing and that wearing it hides your real beauty and transforms you into something unnatural, which is something that I completely stick by to this day, even though I’m a make-up student now, However, what I took from this lecture was the sustainability of our culture and how if we stop using one thing like makeup for example something else would be used in it’s place therefore continuing a cycle we’re already in.