A Taste of Home

By Ieva Gelezinyte

IDEA

Produce a series of images that explore and depict the way that
people who have immigrated to this country have claimed the spaces
that they now inhabit.

The focus will be on locations used by people from Europe.

I want the work to be made through still life but I also want to indicate
a human presence.

People began moving from Lithuania to the UK as far back as

pre-World War I. Although America was the more chosen
destination, some moved to Scotland. A community began to
form but it dwindled heavily after the first World War to a very
small number.
A lot of people then left after the World War II to come to
England. It meant that most of them could not return to their own
country due to strict laws so they had to bring as much
knowledge as they could.
Finally, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, more and more
people leave Lithuania for England to either work or study.

I came to the country at a young age.

My family moved around a lot and while some things stayed the same
no matter how much we moved, we added more things as time
passed by. By being in a new house, the house became affected by
us.
With this in mind, I looked at how my own room has been impacted by
my presence how I declared it as my space.
I now want to know how other immigrants have adapted to being in a
new country. How much of their old have they had to leave behind?
Were there things (objects, beliefs, traditions) that they couldnt forget
about?

RESEARCH

I didnt really have an idea of where I wanted to go with my project so I chose

to research five ideas that came straight to my mind as well as an added idea
that came later.
- The colour Pink
- Witchcraft
- Experience in Russia
- The idea of Idols
- Immigration to England
- Alter Egos

Some of these have now been dropped or merged together to form my current
research.

Pink:
One of my favourite colours.
Aside from being associated with Barbie, what else did it
mean?

The Pink State by Marco Evaristti

An exhibition that made its own state by creating and claiming its own small
piece of land. Pink was used as representation of freedom and equality.
Space forced visitors to interact and leave consequences of their own
actions.
After the exhibition came down, Evaristti said it became a Pink State of
mind, where all the qualities of his state stayed with him. While keeping a
Pink State of mind, he began claiming more spaces all over the world for his
Pink State by dyeing them pink/red.

Witchcraft:
I have been in interested in witchcraft and superstition since I little so I wanted to
research it:
I saw the British Museums exhibition on Witchcraft and learned more about it.
The work by Francisco Goya really interested me, especially the way that he
played on the superstitions about witchcraft that people had.

I was interested by the research but it was also leading me on a tangent.

Experience in Russia:
I visited Russia during the summer.
I didnt know what to expect when I got there after being raised here
and hearing peoples opinions about it.
I found that I confirmed some views and stereotypes but also some
that werent as they were made out to be.

By researching Dmitri Baltermants, from the Russian colour photography

exhibition I learned more about the balance that is in Russia and that it wasnt
always a terrible place.

Piotr Vedenisov allowed me to look into Autochromes.

I found that I really liked the aesthetics of Autochromes so I did research into
them, including how to make them.
It is a long and complicated process to make the plates and it seems that they
are now longer in production.

Idols:

I began looking at the most literal

term for idols.
There was a project where I
looked at something similar to
idols, which was Unsung Heroes.
Like witchcraft, I felt like this was
going off tangent.

Immigrating To England:
I found old family video tapes and converted them. I began to realise a
sense of community.

With the word community in mind, I looked at Lucy Levenes The Spaghetti
Tree where she photographed Italian communities in England.
It made me see how photographers can portray the dynamics of family and
community as well as making me realise the elements of a culture that she
captured.

Alter Egos:
Since I did a project last year on the topic of alter egos, I was still
interested in looking at them further than gaming.
Femm was a Japanese music duo who really embraced the concept of
alter egos to create more interest and publicity for their music and music
videos which always feature them as mannequins.

I then focused on Max Ernsts work where he, fascinated by birds, featured
a character called Loplop who was a manifestation of Ernsts confusion
and became the alter ego that voiced his mind.

But once again I felt like I wasnt

really tying it in with the rest of my
research and it wasnt helping me
develop my project.

Chris Verenes work is made over generations, photographing his family. They
are intimate and comfortable.
The images with writing on them also add a sense presence to the image.

The idea of my work is almost opposite to Boris Mikhailovs Case History.

Described Former Soviet life as a shiny wrapper and the images back some
of the things I saw in Russia.

Pictures from Home by Larry Sultan made me think about having some kind
of human presence in my images.
The images themselves have a cinematic look to them and they give off
feelings of underlying sadness.

Went back to Lucy Levene, My Fathers House

Still life images that show loss.
They are also very ambiguous in what they show

DEVELOPMENT

Began test shooting by

looking at the walls in my
own bedroom.
The gaps showed the
progress of me claiming
space as well.

Decided to combine and collage images much like posters on a wall.

I tried to combine more images together to see how it would look.

The more images to be put together, the more difficult it becomes to make
them flow together.

I also began looking at contacting other Lithuanian people.

A lot of the communities are difficult to get in touch with as they didnt reply
to me and one cancelled on me.
Decided to expand by looking at more than just Lithuanian people and more
at European.
Found an old family acquaintance and he agreed for me to test shoot.
Since it was his home, it was a personal space rather than a public one but
it felt like they had more freedom this way.
I still want to look at public spaces too.

The people living there have also agreed to contact others that they know
who might be interested.
I realised that without photographing only things on walls, its more difficult to
collage the images together.
Next step is to organise more subjects.

BUDGET

Currently unsure about final outcome but I know there will be a lot of prints.
Setting a maximum budget of 400 - 500 on prints.
Take into consideration:
- Transport of work
- Anything additional for final exhibition (Installations, booklets)
- Putting up work (Mounting/Framing)
Highest I want to spend is 900 on project.

TIMETABLE

1st 7th December 2014 Continue organising more contacts

- Keep test shooting
- Evaluate Presentation
8th 14th December 2014 Feedback Tutorials
- More test-shooting
15th December 4th January 2014/2015 Christmas Break
- Continue development
- Shooting

5th 11th January 2015 Develop work

- Aim to get started on shooting Final Images
- Shooting
12th 18th January 2015 Develop work
- Shooting
19th 25th January 2015 Shooting
- Developing
26th January 1st February 2015 - Shooting

2nd 8th February 2015 Shooting

- Development

9th 15th February 2015 Shooting

- Development
16th 22nd February 2015 Development
- Shooting
23rd February 1st March 2015 Editing Final Images
- Taking care of any last minute shooting if needed
2nd 8th March 2015 Editing Final Images

9th 15th March 2015 Editing Final Images

- Beginning to send off for printing
16th 22nd March 2015 Making any last minute final edits

23rd 29th March 2015 Sending off all work for final printing
30th March 5th April 2015 Organising Final work

6th 26th April 2015 Preparing for assessment

- Extra time for an emergencies
27th April 3rd May 2015 Making any last adjustments to final hand-in

4th 10th May 2015 Hand in week

THANK YOU