Exhibition

For our exhibition we decided to march through town with placards and a board full of photographs which would then be placed under Eastgate clock. We kept the march secret from everyone so that we could make an impact on the day.
There are eight placards all together and so we took a placard each and put our favourite A3 photograph on one side with a poster from that march on the other side. The remaining three placards had the remaining three posters from the other protests on them.
 The board was laid out to mimic the style of a charity photo board, such as the one seen below.

The photographs were arranged with images of the protest in the centre and the photographs of the public reaction around the edges with their faces looking inwards.

We also made t-shirts in the style of protesters home made t-shirts. each of us matched our t-shirt to the placard we had made. My placard and t-shirt were for FAIR DEAL FOR OVER 50'S. On the back we wrote quotes from what people had been shouting at us from the street so that mine read "What about the over 60's?"

On the day of the exhibition we hid behind the cathedral until just after 9.30 when we were supposed to be exhibiting, before marching down the street chanting "WHAT DO WE WANT?", "AN EXHIBITION!", "WHEN DO WE WANT IT?", "NOW!"

When our lecturer saw us he came out to join us and marched with us. Under the clock we arrange the board in the middle, leaning against the wall and stood the placards up around the edges. The public were also interested in the exhibition and many came over to see what we were doing and talk to us about the work.

Third Protest

Our third and final protest was planned for a Saturday. We had been advertising and publicising the event as much as possible in the run up and as a result we had a good turn out. Unfortunately the weather was awful and as a result the photographs taken that day were quite poor quality due to the camera lens getting so wet.
Our first cause was suggested by a bus driver, "LESS HOURS FOR JOHN THE BUS DRIVER". We were already getting lots of attention just by carrying the placards into town that day and, particularly because there were lots of younger people around, we had a lot more things shouted out at us as we marched. One man wanted to know who John was but we just continued chanting and marching.
When we reached the Cross there was a busker who did not take kindly to our protesting. The protest was changed to "DON'T PROTEST WITHOUT A REASON" and I photographed the next leg as we made our way up towards the town hall.

As they were marching and member of our group were joining us in a flash mob style two ladies also joined. This was a great result as it was what we had been aiming for when we decided to use a flash mob style approach to the protests.

The group continued to draw attention as they chanted outside the town hall.

The final part of the protest was "DON'T STOP ME IN THE STREET"t, suggested by one passer by  who was stopped for a suggestion. This chant caused a stir as we marched through town with people shouting things such as "excuse me, could I just stop you". At one point a police car pulled up and wound down a window but, after reading the posters, they drove away.

By the end of the protests everyone was soaking wet and part of our plan to pull in more people was to suggest going to the pub together afterwards. As we made our way to the pub we decided to chant "WE'RE GOING TO THE PUB" with blank placards.

 We picked up lots of people following behind us as we walked with a group of children chanting "WE'RE COMING WITH YOU". It was like a scene from a modern day pied piper! 

Second Protest

For our second protest we decided to do 3 different causes and extend the route. We also decided to pause in the middle of each march to allow the photographers to get some good shots and hopefully build up a crowd around us. The route now runs
Eastgate clock to Cross
Cross to town hall
town hall to Eastgate clock

We had less helpers this time, largely due to a hand-in deadline that day for lots of other students but our lecturer came along to help out. Because of the reduced number of protesters we didn't take a flash mob style approach to this protest, instead we marched as a group from start to finish. The first cause we went with was "DOWN WITH MAN U. MARK", suggested by someone who's friend called mark kept annoying him with the Manchester United scores.
At the Cross we changed the protest to "DOWN WITH STEPS, UP WITH RAMPS", suggested by a lady in a wheel chair. She agreed to chant with us and have her photograph taken and while we were chanting another lady with a pram came to join in.

For the third part of the protest we changed to "FAIR DEAL FOR THE OVER 50'S" as suggested by the gentleman shown in the photograph below.

 I photographed this leg of the march. Before we began moving a lady came to join in with the chanting outside the town hall.

 As the group was marching a group of boys began cycling along side and joined in with the chanting. They were only messing around but it was a good reaction.

The group stopped on the corner of Eastgate Street before continuing on to the clock. They attracted quite a lot of attention while chanting here.

When we finished under the clock quite a few members of the public came to talk to us about the protest.

 Fair deal for the over 50's was the most controversial protest we had carried out that day and I was surprised to hear some of the things that people were saying in the street such as "what do they need a fair deal for" and "what about the over 60's?"

First protest

For our first protest we managed to get about 11 people to come along and help us out. We quickly got a suggestion from a member of the public which was made into posters and attached to the placards.

Photograph by Julie Wem

We sent the majority of helpers to mingle with the public in the street and instructed them to join us as we walked by. A small group of us began to march, chanting "Make the wife pay for lunch". We got a good reaction from people in the street with one woman trying to stop us from chanting. The flash mob approach worked well with people seeming to step out and join in.
We stopped at the Cross and got a new cause from the public. The wife theme appears to be popular in Chester and the second suggestion that we went with was "Plaster the wife's mouth up". Once again our helpers went to mingle with the public, although one person didn't like the feel of the protest and chose not to join in again. This second protest was more unpopular but got a great reaction. People shouted abuse at us and some people swore so as far a provoking a reaction goes it was a good result.
I marched in both of the protests while Julie and Natalie photographed and filmed. We had originally planned to document one protest each but after this first protest there is clearly time for us all to take a turn. For the next protest we will also add an extra leg to the journey, heading past the cathedral and back to Eastgate clock.

Our Idea

We have decided to perform flash mobs in the style of a protest. The idea is that we will arrive at the location in Chester city centre with blank placards and then ask the public what they would like us to protest about on their behalf. We will them march and chant, promoting the chosen cause.


We had previously tried out some test flash mobs with Dinu in Chester. For the first one, member of our group began laying down in the middle of the Forum shopping centre.



Photography by Julie Wem
The security guard quickly came along to stop Julie from taking photographs.
The next flash mob we attempted was outside the shopping centre and it took the form of a fake argument. Dinu began shouting at Julie and then the rest of us came and joined in. We got a lot of attention from passers by and the impact we made was more instantaneous than the laying down flash mob had been. The protest idea includes shouting/ making a noise and so should draw more attention from the crowds.


Previously we had been concentrating on the idea of photographing the crowds reaction with little or no attention given to the event that was going on. The protest idea gives us a strong focus that includes the event and should also provide lots of photo opportunities from the watching crowds.

Research

For my research on this project I have been watching lots of flash mob videos on You Tube. Here are some of the best I've seen.


Hallelujah http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE


Frozen grand central http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo

No pants subway ride http://www.youtube.com/user/ImprovEverywhere?feature=chclk#p/u/7/9La40WwO-lU

Human mirror http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MBBr-a2KnM&feature=related

I'm particularly interested in the reactions of the public when these sort of events are happening around them.

New Project

For our second collaborative group project myself, Julie Wem and Sophia Keenan had been working on some ideas while still working on the previous project. However, over the Christmas holidays Sophia decided that she would like the challenge of working with other people and so we decided to see if another group would like to work with us to form one larger group. We approached Tabitha Sparey and Natalie Meer who were happy to work with us.

We had our first meeting on Wednesday and we agreed to come up with a new idea from scratch between the new group. For their last project Tabitha and Natalie photographed people in the street and asked them to write down a secret on a piece of paper. This idea of collecting something alongside photographs is something that we are all interested in and something that had played an exciting role in the project that myself, Julie and Sophia had previously worked on. I find the element of surprise at what you might get or find appealing.

We came up with the idea of doing something in a public place and then turning the camera around to photograph the people watching. This might be done in a flash mob style or by planting people in the crowd while some people take part in the actual event.

For now we are looking at research which we can then talk about together as a group when we next meet. From this we can then further develop the project.

Comments

At our public opening we had a comment book and so I thought I would take the opportunity to share some of the comments we received. I am also including some photographs of the caravan but I do not think that they do the exhibition justice as it is the overall experience of being alone in there that interested people. As a group we are planning to show the exhibition again sometime but at present we are all too busy with other work.

Dwell images