September 2017 week one inter year group project. Carnival is a traditionally seen as a means of public celebration which utilising masks, costumes and floats allows a sense of everyday individuality to slip away so that participants can enjoy a stronger form of social connection.
My assigned group consisted of 13 students from across all 3 year groups but included only 3 other second years. Each group randomly picked a scenario from a hat, this was to be our title and theme for the project. Our title was ‘ Amnesia Island’.
Amnesia Island would be a place were memories did not exist only the present, every day was the first day every feeling was ephemeral, everything learnt that day would be forgotten. The theme as a little to close to my heart after my previous project which had occurred only a couple of weeks before but was quite keen to explore it. The group decided to go with the idea of making a giant brain which would be mounted on a wooden palette and be pulled in the public procession later in the week. The brain was to be large and colourful but empty of knowledge or self awareness.
Unfortunately half of the group decided not to be part of the project as they felt it wasnt their thing…. Whilst one group concentrated on manufacture of the float the others were designing the brain. The brain was constructed from cardboard boxes then covered in layers of plastic and paper to try and make a recognisable shape. Once constructed it was spray painted pink with additional colours for detail. Attached after that were dozens of glow sticks representing the brains neural pathways. The brain had been designed to be place upon one of the students heads when it was going to be displayed. Alistair chose to be that person, he would sit on the float and wear the brain and wave his arms around as the procession occurred. Meaning the float had been constructed and covered on black sheets to hide the wood. surrounded with cotton wool representing the fluffy nature of an empty brain and skirted with blank post it notes. The post it notes were to symbolise blank thoughts or reminders that had not been made, why do we use post it notes??
To make the carnival even more elaborate each student was to create a costume to wear to coincide with the theme. Three of us made fabric poncho’s with blank post it notes covering front and back witch a few having a question mark drawn on them. Two of the group crafted large cardboard question marks and wore tem as outfits whilst covered head to toe in black. The final student (6 in total) made a dream catcher out of a wire hoop on a long pole and wool to walk behind the float catching the bubble that were being blown by myself at the front of the float. This did in fact work rather work and added to the theatre and acted as a fleeting ephemeral metaphor for thoughts floating away.
Despite on 6 students actually taking part in the final procession it was rather fun and colourful together with all the other floats it was certainly a spectacle.
Michael Palmer 