Air Pollution in China

Over the past seven years, levels of particulate matter in Beijing's air averaged nearly five times the recommended daily level set by the World Health Organisation, according to data from a monitoring station at the US embassy.

he medical implications of sustained exposure to particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5) are sobering. A study by Greenpeace and scientists at Peking University based on 2013 data attributed more than 257,000 premature deaths in 31 Chinese cities to PM2.5, making it a bigger killer than smoking.

Awareness of the dangers of Beijing's skies is on the rise, due to growing data on its air quality. Anyone can monitor pollution using apps providing hourly updates of PM2.5 levels, based on government or US embassy readings.

Refences for mock FMP

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fxxk-air-pollution-chinas-artists-fashion-designers-respond-beijing-smog-photo-report-1490448

https://www.chinadialogue.net/books/6822-Speaking-out-against-air-pollution-through-smog-art-/en

http://www.modemontreal.tv/en/news/experimental-fashion

http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat10/sub66/item392.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-13/china-air-pollution-kills-4-000-people-a-day-researchers

http://laqm.defra.gov.uk/public-health/pm25.html

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120120/PC1208/301209901

SKETCHBOOK

My sketchbook for my Mock FMP.

Initial idea mind map 

A pen drawing of the Northern Lights.

Here I looked into ecosystems as they are at risk thanks to water pollution.

I did a simple pen outline of fish on tracing paper against a colourful splattered background done using ink.

On this page I looked in different textures. I based all these on the picture of a coral on the left. The piece on the right was done using a hot glue gun and paint onto cardboard to get the '3D' effect of the coral.

Behind this I used string which I dyed using ink to get a different kind of effect.

On the right page is my experimentation.

For the top left I used a glue glue on cling film and whilst the glue was still hot I added ink, the result was the ink bubbled inside the glue which looked really cool.

Next to that I drew my coral circles using ink on corrugated cardboard then added the glue gun.

Middle left was created used washing up liquid and ink mixed together , I then used a straw and blew into the concoction to create bubbles ,I then layed paper over it to get the inprint of the bubbles

Next to this bubble wrap in its original form.

Bottom left is think and a hot glue gun again, this time just done on paper.

And lastly next to that is bubble wrap which I painted over using acrylics and the picture of the coral as reference to try and recreate the same effect , which I think turned out really well.

Here is a water colour painting of the ice caps melting which I like as its

Here is a peice I did to represent the damaging use that oil and fossil fuels are having on our Earth.

I used acrylic and a photo for reference to create an accurate and realistic painting of the world , I then quite carelessly splattered and pored black ink from the top of the page and let it run down to the bottom to represent the oil.

I think the overall effect of this is strong and quite shocking.  

Here I wanted to try something a bit different , I looked into line drawings and pop art. The girl crying was created using sharpies, the eyes closed; a blue biro and the 3 faces are based of an artist called An Claes and drawn by me using a black biro. 

The two quotes were made using a stencil and black sharpies.

This was a quick page I did for my photo shoot , I drew the 'toxic/nuclear' symbol which I then painted onto a dust mask, I also experimented with the sign by making it 'drippy' with ink and also spattered some 'blood' on there which was made using watered down acrylic.

These are some pictures from my photo shoot which I printed out and stuck down , I did some little doodles around them in black and red sharpies , making them a little more sinister.

Here are my final pictures from my shoot which I printed out onto high gloss paper which I think looks way better then normal paper and as it really gives it hat profession touch. I edited these on my phone used an App called VSCO and for the one where it's all black and white except for the mask and App called 'Colour Pop' 

Overall I am very happy with my photos , then turned out better than I was expecting. I feel they have very industrial feel them with the background of one our studios and the with the strong lighting/shadows.

FXXK AIR POLLUTION

Fashion Designer Chi Zhang has used his designs has a creative way to respond to Beijing's dangerous levels of air pollution. Zhang said that the Chinese capital/s air pollution is on of his prime inspirations. Embellished gas masks and the phrase "Fxxk Air Pollution' are trademarks in his creations.

















Artist Kong Ning has designed a wedding dress decorated with 999 face masks for her performance art work at Marry The Blue Sky and has created a series of painting titled Smog Baby.
She wore the 10m long wedding dress as part of her performance to signify her frustration with air pollution.

SMOG ART

For part of my research for my mock FMP.

Residents in China have been speaking out against Air Pollution in the form of 'Smog Art'.

People have been sorting creative ways to get the message about air pollution out into the public eye. Some ways they have done this includes making smog-versions of popular songs and placing masks on statues in Beijing.

The people who are doing all these things are not professional artist rather these brave and clever acts put smog, a taboo subject, onto the public agenda  by everyday people who  have been driven to act and speak out because of the PM10 and PM2.5 pollution.      

Scary Beautiful.

Scary Beautiful is part of Leanie Van Der Vyver's Thesis 'Playing God'.

The Introduction ,  available on her website 'http://cargocollective.com/Leanie'

Just being human is not good enough anymore nor has it ever been. What is very clear is that people are not satisfied with what they were naturally born with. Neither the prehistoric cave dweller nor modern man has ever considered the human body aesthetically satisfactory. It is human nature to want to be more than what we are, and from the beginning of time we have gone to extreme measures to express on the outside how we desire to be perceived. On the surface, we are physically turning into ideal dream versions of ourselves. Being born a certain way is no longer a life sentence. We can choose exactly who we want to be. What are the possibilities of this new God-like control we have over our bodies?

Right now you can truly become more than just yourself, more than human. It’s almost as if we have shifted from reality into fantasy. The sky is the limit when it comes to controlling our own image. Being online is considered a trusted version of yourself. We are behaving as if we have robotic extensions and we can now generate body parts and also have access to the technology to obtain super powers. We now have complete power over our own image and abilities. What is currently being done and where might these God-like powers potentially lead?

Leanie looked to challenge the modern day beauty ideals by inflicting an unexpected beauty standard. The way heels are made means the wearer becomes immobile, having to walk slower and in smaller strides/ more steps. The posture has to changed so the heels are the 'easy' to walk in, the way this is done is by keeping the shoulders back and chin up, the back is arched making the backside stick out and the hips swing more when walking. Physically the legs appear longer which is deemed as attractive in modern western society.She has really exaggerated the way the body looks and changes whilst wearing ordinary heels so much so that it looks unnatural and distorted, which begs the question , is this how other cultures think when they see people in western society wearing this type of fashion? Or Historically how would people from past centuries view the modern day take on footwear? High heels have been in and out of fashion since the Second World War however they were never predominant till the 1980/90's more so high heels date back to Medieval Europeons who wore wooden sole pattern shoes over their normal shoes, their purpose was to elevate the wearer above mud and dirt ( as well as human and animal waste) in the street. They all were used by Persian horse riders in the Near East who wore them because they helped the rider's foot hold in the stirrups better. So the practicality of the high heel shoe has lost all its intents and purpose and are now all but necessary in modern day purely for aesthetical value. So here's to assuming that someone not from this century ( or even last century ) react the same way that I did to watching 'scary beautiful'?  for its eye-twitching display of watching the model awkwardly walk across the room in very painfully looking footwear and wondering just why would you ever wear them to women in modern day society wearing high heels? 

Side note: high-fashion  websites see a low heel as a shoe less than 2.5 inches , a mid-heel between 2.5 and 3.5 inches and a high heel as anything over 3.5 inches. Whilst the high street see a high heel as ranging from 2-5 inches or more.

Cultural Beauty.

The Kayan tribe Thailand.

Women in this tribe start wearing brass rings around their necks from the age of 5 to elongate their necks. A long neck is considered beautiful and elegant in this region and some women wear up to 20 rings.  

In Ethiopia's Karo tribe women's scars are seen as attractive and desirable.Self-scarring therefor practiced as it is cherished by the people.

The women of Mauritania are lauded to gain weight as a larger wife is seen as a status symbol for her husband. Young girls have been known to of been sent to camps to 'fatten them up'as they are forced to consume up to 15,000 calories a day.

In Iran nose jobs are so common it is  the Rhinoplasty capital of the world . They are so much of a status symbol that women will wear their post-surgical plasters way longer then needed , or even fake a nose jobs by wearing a bandage . 

The Masai of Kenya stretch their earlobes using rocks and pieces of elephant trunk to pierce and elongate their earlobes as this is seen as a beauty ideal.

In Southern Ethopia the Mursi women insert clay plates into their bottom lips to stretch them. Increasing the size of the plate incrementally to make their lips bigger. This ritual is seen as a symbol for sexual maturity and beauty.

Global warming

How do scientist know that the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has risen? Carbon dioxide is a measurable greenhouse gas.scientist cab determine how much has accumulated in the atmosphere from measurements of air that's up to a million years old, trapped within air bubbles in icecores, and from air samples taken from the 1950's onwards. Thus gives them a reliable long and short term record.               Human activity: most scientists have concluded that human activities are the main cause for the world warming up. Some activities increase the concentration of some greenhouse gases in the atmosphere most importantly carbon dioxide and methane. In the past human activities have only had a minor effect. But as technology and civilisation have advabced, activities causing greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing. These include transport, building, agriculture and the way we generate power. At the same time position such as smog has increased and some of the pollutants had a cooling effect but thus was reduced in the 1970's in Europe and North America by health laws. The biggest increases in greenhouse gas emissions have occurred in the last 50 years- at the same time as the fastest increases in temperature. Thus and other evidence, including direct measurements and known physical laws, have led scientists to conclude that the two are indeed closely linked.      However could changes in the sun be the cause? Chnages in the suns output do affect the Earth's temperature. The suns output is slightly higher when there are more sunspots and lower when there are fewer. During a period of more sunspots in the middle ages the climate warmed up slightly. Temperatures in Europe rose,but its not clear if the effect was worldwide. Sunspot activity goes up and down in cycles of about 11 years. But once averaged out,  the Sun's output has changed little in the past 50 years.                                                                                                                                                El Niño: The Earth's climate system includes natural cycles which affect how heat is spread across the globe. These both warm and cool the atmosphere, and cab cause impacts ranging from floods to fire. Of these, the El Niño cyclenhad the most effect on global tempture during the past century. In 1998 an especially strong El Niño event occurs, causing the world the warm. This had knock on effect

Brief

SECTION ONE:
  


 A response to the current global environmental issues such as global warming and air pollution in reference to my subject area which is Fashion Communication.


Project objective.
what question do you want to answer//   How have current environmental issues shaped the fashion industry.

what do you want to learn how to do//
what do you want to find out// How we have affected the earth, what problems we have caused, how / if we can reverse this.




SECTION TWO:


For my mock FMP which is based on Chindogu, which is  the art of creating useless objects.

My subject area is fashion , more specifically fashion communication. For this project I have decided to look into environmental issues around the world and to create a fashion communication response to this is the shape of illustrations , photography and

Firstly I looked into beauty and fashion ideals from around the world, the idea behind this is that beauty is subjective to each cultular in the way that each country and the societies within these countrys perceive beauty differently, for example where a slim figure and symmetrical face is the seen as desirable  in modern western society for the Masai of Kenya having elongated earlobes , which have been stretched using rocks and pieces of elephant trunk, is seen as the ideal for beauty.

Where chindogu is seen as the art of creating useless objects , in japan where it originates from they are seen as almost normal.
Moreso in china where pollution is a problem because of the toxic air pollution, mouth masks which were introduced for safety have now become a thing of fashion with them being sold decorated in the popular cultural such as manga.



SECTION THREE:

Activities to be carried out during the project.
I have/will be researching into environmental issues( global warming, air pollution, water pollution) and into fashion in different cultures and how these link).
Data Collection / Numerical Analysis (The statistical evidence of environmental issues, e.g. weather data from 20 years ago vs now , sea levels from 100 years ago vs now etc)




SECTION FOUR:

Photoshoot (mock fmp)

PHOTOSHOOT /

What I did /

Took pictures of my model using an Iphone6s.

Location /

Corner of the 2D studio

Equipment /

iPhone6s

Lights

Chair

Props

Model/

I used Alix as my model , she wore the simple yet  rugged clothing I asked her to (oversized grey t shirt and blue jeans with rips In the knee and white trainers) 

 For her face I blended a black gel eyeliner on her eyeliner and undereyes ( and water line) and smudged it down to her cheeks ( as if she's been crying) I also asked my model to rub her eyes with the eyes to give it a real worn look.

Next I added fake blood from both the outer and inner corner of hers eyes to give the appearance that's she's been crying blood. 

In my mind I want a very dark and dramatic look , as her eyes are only visible (she wore a mask the majority of the time) I thought a over dramatic  grungy dark eye was in order. I decided the blood later one as I thought it would really complete the look and shock people. I was thinking along the lines of : dust and smog in her eyes so bad they're red and raw and bleeding.

For the actual shoot one think I want was dramatic lighting , so I moved the light around a lot until I got the effect I wanted , which happened when the light was to the right of my facing the wall alongside the model rather that shining on her to make the shadows on her left very prominent. 

EDITED//