Installation in place

We placed the installation on the 13th February and I found that mine went in a lot quicker than I thought, I played around with the placement of the frames and felt happy with this arrangement. I wanted something that filled the space but also added to the sense of monotony so I had some of them in a pile with the stones scattered around which lead onto the frame that were arranged in a line. I felt that this lead nicely into showing the process of them coming from the pile of frames down the line and then into the second room to be ordered.
I had some very good feedback from the visitors that have seen it so far on the opening on 14th February and hopefully this will be recorded along with the visitors that will see it in the week to follow on the comment cards that will be given to every visitor.

Initial idea/design

After deciding that we wanted to do the play measure for measure and set it in Cartegena we started brainstorming a design and what it is we wanted people to experience when entering into the space. The main things that would be part of the design would be two opposing buildings from the play and these would be the monastery/ religious building and a brothel. We feel this represents Isabella's choice within the play, she is torn between the life she already has within the church/state or the choice she has been given by Angelo and her brother.

We want a full immersion of the feeling of being in Cartegena and this would include giving the feeling of being part of the culture, we want to have street sellers with crates selling fruit. This would allow us to create the scene changes from the crates to be able to adapt them and move them around into the settings.
We think that it would be a good idea to set in a time that would be relevant to the play and this would be perfect to have Pablo Escabar as the dukes character.

We want the set to colourful but appropriate to each part of the set for example the church building would be well kept but a dullish colour in comparison to the brothel which we feel should be garish but the paint is faded and wearing down. Bunting would add a sense of place by using the colours of the Columbian flag.

Perhaps the addition of a canopy has been suggested and this would add a sense of oppression and feeling trapped within this concept, this idea of façade and oppressions would be highlighted by the use of favelas on the tops of each of the building to give an effect that all these people are being effected by the decisions of the state.

model box so far

So far I have put in the rough stage shape that we would like to work with and have plotted in the shapes of the buildings that would go at each of the stage, the church will be taller than the brothel to create that idea of intimidation and overpowering. Both lots of building will be in three sections and will be reflections of each other so they will have similar placements of doors and windows.

white card presentation feedback

For the white presentation I made sure that I had a suggestion of the design that we wanted for the play. I had the shapes of the building at each end and the shape of the stage that we would be using, also a few of the crates.
Everyone really liked the concept and the design and they felt that it would really work within the space and that all the themes of the play had been met and that we just needed to think about some of the bits within the design. The main factor was that the canopy might be too low and would effect the sight lines of the people in the top balcony, so this would either need to be changed or scrapped.

They really like the addition of the favelas around the balconies because this would integrate them into the design and make it seem like the audience are the people that live in the favelas and are overlooking the conflict taking place on stage.

Talking to my director we also came up with a few new design features which include using mirrors for the windows of the church to enhance the fact that the state are trying to create a façade so people cant see in to what they are doing and it reflects the image of the brothel at the other end of the stage.
We also discussed how the floor might look and we decided that it would be quite nice to carry on the effect of fading in the floor as well as the building but make the floor towards to church be more well kept and not so trodden but the floor at the brothel end more faded and trodden and have bits missing.

To give the production political context a suggestion of having some of the characters at the beginning reading papers with Pablo Escobar's picture on the front and possibly posters on the buildings so that people would understand the political setting and explain the choice of location.

changes in the model

I have added a canopy into the design to be able to create that intimate enclosed feeling that my director wanted the audience to feel. After looking at what my director wanted within the design i readjusted the model because I realised that she had wanted the favelas to go onto both structures within the design, so I created roof on the church side. I feel this really nicely ties the two side together and my tutor suggested that I have favelas all around the balconies because it then ties in the audience with the design and really brings the immersion of the set into focus.
I have made the canopy in this way because I need to take into account the sight lines of the audience and we want as many people to be able to see the design as possible so I will need to play around with the shape of the canopy and the height that it will hang at.

Southwell in progress

Started to make my frames working from the photo of the frame that i had seen at Southwell workhouse. I made them from four bits of wood roughly the same length to create a square frame and nailed them together also using glue to make them really strong. I then added chicken wire by using the air tacker making sure that it didn't fire to hard and cut through the chicken wire. To ensure that people wouldn't catch themselves on the chicken I added thin strips of woods to cover the sharp edges of the chicken wire. the frames themselves didn't take too long to make once I had got in the rhythm of making them, I decided to make ten so that I had a few to play around with in the space because i would like to be able to move them around in the room to see how I would like them to be set.

My aim is to set them like the workers had just walked away from them and you get the sense of the presence of the people that would have been there.

Southwell presentation feedback

After presenting my design to the group from south well I feel that I really have a solid link to the workhouse and my installations. From the start I wanted to include the use of frames with the installation but I could not find a developed link to that would connect it to the stones that I would like to include. After talking to the group about the use and the reason for the stones in my piece and trying to connect it to the frames they suggested the frames could be the rock sieves that the inmates would have used to separate the different sizes of stones.

I thought that this was a really good connection to the labour that they would have been amongst so it backs up the idea of monotony and repetition with the use of the sieves. On  a visit to south well after the presentation I found an example of one of the sieves and took some photos for reference so will hopefully try to make mine like these.