# 8

tate modern

this week i visited the chinese artist, ai weiwei's installation at the turbine hall (tate modern). his piece entitled sunflower seeds is poured over the entire floor of the hall, looking like a carpet and is made up of 100 million sunflower seeds. it explored the relationship between the individual and the masses. these realistic sunflower seeds are actually made of ceramic and were both hand crafted and individually painted. this piece was originally intended to be walked upon however on the 22nd of october it was forced to be inaccessible due to the amount of dust that was produced and it was said that it could harm public health! when i saw it, it was roped off to the public.

for the second week of fine art we were asked to research and select your own images and objects which have interesting disparate cultural references. from this we had to produce a series of works that explores and exploits some of the following qualities: photographic, naturalistic, historical contemporary, trashy/kitsch, pop, culturally significant, abstract in the form of either drawing, sculpture, digital media, or painting. i chose to look back at the images i took from the previous tuesday (people walking past me at oxford circus) and to draw from them and possibly create an animation.

the tutors seemed to take interest in my drawings (well one of them!) and advised me that i should talk more to max about animation.