The first Assignment for Design Studies in semester 2 involved swapping photographs with a student you did not know well or at all from another discipline. The photo's were to be of either a selections of rooms from your home before anything had been tidied away, or a range of photos from when you were growing up. I received photo's from Ailsa, a textiles student. There were about 7 or 8 photo's from her childhood. We were asked to look closely at the photo's and try to make guesses about this person's life, their possible influence, tastes and try and make guesses about what their possessions or other things in the photo's say about them. I found it quite difficult at first as in the photographs that I received Ailsa was no older than about 4 or 5, therefore making assumptions about her current tastes etc was not easy. I had also given Ailsa a set of photographs of the rooms in my home and after both taking several notes on each photograph, we met up to discuss our findings.
In many of Ailsa's photograph's of her as a child she was with a man who I presumed was her father, there was only one picture with her mother so I therefore guessed she may be a bit closer with her Dad. Her dad also seemed relatively alternatively dresses in the pictures, in checked shirts and leather and also on a motorbike, I thought maybe Ailsa was influenced by him in some way involving this, possibly music taste. All but one of the photograph's were outdoors, from this I suggested she might be quite into being outside - at the beach etc as opposed to spending a lot of time indoors. From what I could see of the area in the photographs I guessed that she grew up in a quieter town rather than a busy city as the surroundings in the photographs always seemed to be in spacious places (the beach, park, garden) There was one photograph where Ailsa was with an older man and woman who I assumed were her grandparents, she seemed very happy in this picture, this was also the only photograph that featured another child. From this I guessed she was quite close to her grandparents and was possibly an only child, as all the other pictures (mainly with her Dad) were of just the two of them.
It was very interesting to discover that all the assumptions I made were correct. Ailsa told me that she did feel she was closest to her Dad and that her music tastes have been influenced by her parents, she listens to a lot of 'older music'. She also agree'd that she likes to spend time outdoors and grew up outside of a city. She informed me that she is in fact close to her grandparent and that she is an only child. Obviously it was difficult to know exactly where the photograph's were taken and who was in them so it was interesting that Ailsa explained the exact details of them all to me :) she told me about how she lived in England when she was a baby and that the other child in the photo was her cousin who she was very close in age to and gets on very well with.
I was also intrigued to see what Ailsa had assumed about me from my photographs. I guessed it would be difficult for her as my Mum is extremely house proud and even without tidying up beforehand the rooms are very tidy and there is not much possession on show. Despite this it was interesting to see that Ailsa has still made correct guesses about many aspects of my life. She obviously guessed that the house was kept very organised and tidy, likely by my mum which is right. She guessed I was influenced by this and was similar as my bedroom was also relatively tidy, which is spot on! She guessed from a photo of the dining room with a large table and chairs that I am quite a family orientated person, that we are close and eat meals and things like that as a family, also right. She also picked up on the fact that I have a brother who is a similar age and is very into music (his room is full of cd's). Ailsa also picked up on small things in my bedroom, such as two cuddle toys on my bed which she thought might have some sort of importance since I dont have much stuff left out in my room - one is a gift from my mum and the other from my boyfriend so both are special to me :) There were some details that we guessed that were a little off but generally the guesses we both made were pretty accurate.
I found it very interesting how much we both guessed right just from 6 or 7 photographs. Ailsa even picked up on things from my photo's that I never even noticed myself but were spot on. Although it was interesting, it was initially made me very uncomfortable making assumptions about someone's life when I don't really know them. I was a bit worried about getting it totally wrong or possibly offending her. I was also even more uncomfortable letting someone judge me - my home and making guesses about my life. It made me think about first impressions - I guess I am quite bad for making judgements when first meeting people at making instant assumptions about the kind of person they are but at least in this way you seem to be able to paint a reasonably accurate picture about that person and get insight into them and their life without ever really knowing anything about them originally. Overall, a little invasive but very interesting assignment!
No comments:
Post a Comment