Ayaka Eguchi

I chose the blog written by Harriet Rowney, which is about the impact of Better Lives. I really like her blog because it was dug deeper into her consideration totally. 

 She stated that “we are each able to make small changes contributing towards a big development”, which was mostly the same sentence, which was little efforts make significant differences, I wrote in my second blog. Therefore, I often felt empathy while I’m reading her blog. She wrote about it’s vital that we try to buy things from second-hand stores for contributing sustainability, however, it was also written that it is impossible to be equal as long as the stores are progressive and positive in terms of economic disadvantage. During all the lectures regarding sustainability, I was thinking separately about purchasing second-hand clothes and knowing where garments originate from. Her writing changed my thinking because I realized that the important thing is supporting organizations that seem to be liberal. She put a quote that is “the crisis-prone nature of capitalism means it would likely be plunged into a deep recession by radical attempts to modify the degree of surplus value extracted from labour in a sector such as clothing.” (Brooks, 2015). In my perspective, it means that even if people who work in defective conditions (generally in developing countries) are putting efforts to make things for us, the value itself is twisted by for-profit personal leaders relatively. Therefore, “liberal” means to support the organizations which confirm satisfaction and equality of the manufacturer and the brand from both sides. 

 As for another thing, the importance of sensitivity was written. Since we are both taking a class of Contemporary Portrait Photography in this unit, I thought her way of thinking when it comes to photographing is what I need to think of. She mentioned that it’s significant to make things relevant to the direction of what you want to convey to audiences. This thing includes to research something not only ethical aspect but historically and socially as well. I totally agree with her thinking since there are many mistakes of precedent, such as cultural appropriation. With prizing single esthetic and taking place (when it is the direction regarding such) into the photograph is the key to creating things I thought. Researching and recognizing from various aspects is not the only thing in terms of taking pictures. It is crucial on the stage of creating new ideas or stating something as well.

  Overall, her blog made me see those things from a different view and consider the significance of the revelation.

References : 

Brooks, A. (2008) ’ Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes, Zed books.

After all the lectures have been done in Better Live unit, I was able to gain many inspirations from sessions that I attended which is Contemporary Portrait Photography. Since we have been under the circumstance that everybody feels isolated and anxious because of the coronavirus, it is absolutely limited that we can do for creating some works or conducting activities for the sessions. However, lectures run by tutors (CPP) introduced us a lot of works that were really interesting and made me think more positive way. 

I was inspired especially by ‘Home Portrait’ in the lectures. For instance, Nigel Shafran, who is a photographer, created the works which captured images of the ordinariness of everyday life. His works contain the sense of bleakness at first glance, yet they have an inherent beauty in daily life. Another artist is Heather Glazzard. He used a Facetime as a medium for taking portrait photographs during the quarantine. Especially young queer people, who can especially struggle with the loss of support networks during the lockdown, are models of the works. Both of the provocative outcomes broke my boundary of limitation in terms of restricted place. Utilizing accustomed things and place in a house such as a kitchen, bedroom, and living room tend to become disinterested for the reason that it presumably would be looked a little bit personal.

Nonetheless, either work delivered a degree of intimacy and warmness to the audiences. I realized that we have been ignoring potential aesthetics in everyday life. Even the moment you see it casually in our house (an instant of cooking something, tiding clothes and selecting garments) looking through the lens may be beautiful depending on the hue, amount of light, and angle.

Thanks to the development of digital, we are able to create some works as a collaboration even being different places in each other. At this time, we didn’t do that in our session, yet I saw the other students’ works through Padlet. We updated works there our interpretation of portrait photographs as home portraits. I saw many of students capturing part of sections in their room (house) in their practices and they are genuinely affectionate as a result of the intimacy. I did take photographs of my dog with black and white style. I have never thought about the power of the effect, and always rely on how it looks for my satisfaction rather than the story behind when taking a picture, however, I have learnt that the process of my selection and decision making is what facilitate the works stronger.

Due to the pandemic, we are not able to take a picture outside, yet I have learnt about many photographers and their profound works; thus, I’m going to delve furthermore for my future projects.

Image : Portrait of my dog (project outcome)

One thing that I considered crucially through the lectures is that the importance of a relationship with nature and human being. One of the better lives lecture done by Kate Fletcher is made me believe earnestly that how much we are living in danger by taking certain actions, which obviously causes of damage to the Earth, without noticing it. We are facing a crisis that we have already realized probably, yet not taking seriously since we tend to think that things that is occurring in other countries (such as deforestation, the sea level from rising, decreasing of large number of species) are way to far from our daily life, however it’s not true unfortunately. The escalating changes in the Earth’s condition are accelerating at a tremendous rate, and the changes were evident in the index she showed to us. The graph signified that all living systems have declined and most of reduced by more than 50% since 1970. Moreover, there are nine planetary boundaries covered the Earth, and three of them have already been transgressed.

 This lecture reminded me of the project that I did in the last term, which is the looks (hair and makeup) combined with the global issue of plastics and ocean. As everyone knows, plastics are also the factor of earth destruction and the power of it will be getting stronger with the times if we keep relying and overusing on the advantage of plastics. One of the artists that I want to refer in this context is Tuula Narhinen, who is a visual artist based in Helsinki in Finland. Her works’ themes are mostly about landscape, natural phenomena and environmental issues. “Baltic Sea Plastique” is one of the great works indicating the crisis of the sea contaminated by plastics.

 Since I’m taking a class of Contemporary Portrait Photography in the Better Lives Unit, I was inspired by the artist while I’m researching to get some inspirations for the final outcomes. Due to the fact that we are learning fashion with the aspect of sustainability, diversity and social responsibility, I thought it’s a great idea to combine global issues in terms of durability and photography. I am going to attempt to photograph blessings of nature on daily life with portrait photographs. The reason why I decided to do that through my project is that I want to convey “little changes make big differences” by our efforts such as reducing the number of plastics, water and exhaust gas. Although this is relatively gentle actions in the context, however, many people aren’t trying these as you can see from the situation we are living. Therefore, it’s vital to take action one by one more zealously.  

 To sum up, the realization of how we need to act on and pay attention right now to creating better lives is what made me more creative. 

 References : 

 Fletcher, K. (2020) ‘Nature’ [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 13 February

All the lectures that I attended made me think about what we should take action right now for establishing better lives as a fashion student, individual and entire. We are now living in this excessively developed society, which means there are full of choices in terms of diversity, social responsibility and sustainability. In this life, it has a positive aspect when it comes to the convenience of buying clothes or necessities. However, also we should be constantly aware of that our actions might contribute to creating contaminated future somehow because of each decision we are making that is invisible in our daily life. One thing that I regarded through the lectures is that considered how companies reveal the process from the origin toward us is vital. The speech presented by Julia Crew was deeply affected by my consideration of sustainability. She introduced us sustainability with clarifying “power” that we are surrounded by, which are a power of fashion, media and consumer etc. As a fashion student, I have concerned about amount of wasted clothing annually (as Julia stated that “will it be in the region around 100 billion garments that are produced annually that figure is set to increased by 60% by 2030 and is that total is estimated that up to 75% of those clothes are going or be end up throwing away in landfill or be incinerated”); however, the action that we have to take was obscure before I took this lecture. 

Within the presentation, the power of media made me look at sustainability different perspective I have ever had. Utilizing SNS, especially nowadays, Instagram and Facebook have been influencing enormously. The power of these have been making impacts on the fashion industry as well, and that is what we need to take into account severely when purchasing garments. As a result, we are continually buying garments impulsively just for our desire and satisfaction. Including myself, it is demanded to consider sustainability in the long run. Nevertheless, it is vague which brand we should encourage in terms of sustainability even though there are options such as a second-hand or vintage store. 

For instance, the brand called “Reformation”, which is shown customers with a tag as well as a description on their online store that how much environmental load was required to make the garments they sell (CO2 and garbage emissions etc.). Additionally, they have been making clothes with sustainable materials. This movement is much more accurate to understand customers what action we made after purchasing and displayed the significance of supporting the brand. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizen can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” by Margaret Mead. This quote was introduced in her lecture and made me contemplated the action that we should convert. Taking advantage of consumer powers and supporting that kind of brand leads to create better society gradually. I want to educate myself furthermore with researching an eco-friendly company and considering the origin.