Six Degrees of Separation
This project was a university brief during my final year at Bath School of Art & Design, for which I was asked to use the idea that all people in the world are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other.
The project required linking six degrees of separation back to the city of Bath – I wanted to answer the brief in a way that was unexpected, so I tried to follow the darkest and most morbid route possible. Upon extensive research, I found a way to link famous figures from the 60s/70s by way of interaction.
I chose to connect the following six degrees:
Sir Peter Blake, The Beatles, Beach Boys, Ronald Reagan, Charles Manson, and finally Sharon Tate & Roman Polanski. (The links are explained below.)
Artist Proofs
We were able to respond to the brief in whatever way we desired, and I chose to create silkscreen printed posters, as it is a medium that I love to work in. I also felt that I would be able to convey the dark and grungy feeling that I intended to evoke easily within that method of making.
Part II
After this provisional section of the project, we were then challenged to take our project and apply it to a social context. I initially found it difficult to reframe the work that I had already completed, but I thought about one of the words in the list; 'charity'. I noticed that
three out of the six figures have contributed to marginalising and victimising sectors of society, so I decided to focus on them for the second half of the brief.
I created a series of posters that would be sold as charity fundraising in aid of organisations founded to help victims of different afflictions, each one representing the injustice that each poster's subject is guilty of. Upon research, I found suitable charities for each subject. I felt it was more appropriate for the prints to be in black and white only. I hand printed these at four times the size, going from the artist proof size of A4 up to a massive A1.
Charles Manson
Polanski & Tate
Ronald Reagan