On the 11th of November, we went on another trip! This time to the Bristol Museum! Sadly, for the same technical reasons that caused my M-Shed post to be delayed, this post is later than I wanted. So, without further ado, let's get into the trip!
Sadly, compared to the M-Shed, there were a lot less things that caught my eye or inspired ideas. However, there were still a few things so I'll go into those now.
Giant Irish Moose
Okay, I apologise for the poor camera work, there were some rather energetic children around and I got bumped into a few times. Regardless, this creature amazed me purely for it's massive size! The sign was not kidding when it said Giant! Combine that with the fact that this massive creature used to roam freely through Ireland and you have the source of my amazement! If I saw this, I'd expect it to be somewhere like America, not somewhere so close to home! That started me thinking, what if these giant creatures roamed through modern day Britain? Even typing this now, I'm getting the mental image of one of these moose getting their antlers stuck in a Tesco's doorway! (Hm, I'll have to have a go at sketching that out!) Or even having their bulking muscle tearing a modern business suit to shreds! (A moose wearing a suit... Why not!) I think it has the potential to be both funny and serious depending on how you want to portray it!
Pokemon Cards (What!?)
Yup! I kid you not, there are Pokemon cards at a Museum! (Oh, I feel so old...) This was upstairs among and exhibit on Asian art and, for the area the cards were in, the focus on dragons (hence why they're all dragon types~!) Now while the rest of the art there was very impressive to me, it didn't quite stick with me the way seeing these did. These were things I grew up with, so they instantly made a connection. And THAT is a big reason for why they inspired me so. They're something a lot of the current generation either grew up with or grew up knowing. So, a mixture of Pokemon and the city could be a powerful message in a way. After all, no one would want to see their favourite Pikachu being used to power the entire city, or their favourite Pidgy with it's head caught in plastic from city litter. There was also the idea of creating Pokemon that have been affected by the city. A racoon like Pokemon who's mask is really sludge from toxic waste, a fox like Pokemon who's partially steel due to it having to adapt to the urban surroundings? Doesn't make sense in reality, but in the Pokemon world these kinds of things do happen.
Some Final Ideas and Thoughts
While I didn't get too much out of this experience, I did still come up with a few ideas.
This piece was something I saw in the Museum and tried to draw within 5 minutes. (I cheated a little and took a bit longer than 5 minutes, but don't tell anyone) It was a piece of Roman architecture found in Bristol. This gave me the idea of taking the outline of Bristol, picking out possibly four key areas in time and having each of those area's combine to form Bristol? Almost like a puzzle! The outline would be there, but the actual picture would be incredibly diverse.
This idea, and the next few ones, weren't quite based on the Museum. This one here does come from something to do with Bristol though. Just after WWII ended, Bristol had it's very own Atomic Bomb Evacuation procedure that was introduced and tested. This was known as 'Project Medusa' or 'The Medusa Project' See, as I do have a soft spot for Greek Mythology and an
incredibly big soft spot for Medusa, including this in an idea was something I loved. The initial idea was to have Bristol situated on top of Medusa's head and have the snakes dropping the bombs on the public. However, it ended up developing into a lot more. Soon, I had the idea of the snakes being created from recycled materials, dropping "propaganda bombs" with the faceless public suffering and panicking. By her neck was Parliament, staying completely unaffected by any of the mess they were creating, and within her mouth was a TV News Presenter, who was in slight danger but still not as much as the general public. This was to symbolise how, to me, Parliament can do whatever they want without any consequence. News Reporters are fine, so long as they show what Parliament want seen, otherwise they may suffer slightly. Then, there's the general public. The people Parliament claim to put so high up are the ones who suffer the most. This is just my personal opinion though, so feel free to disagree all you want.
These two images were based on society itself. The first was to represent how society removes the creative, curious, innocence we have as children and turns us into mindless drones who don't really care anymore. The second one had a bit more significance to me. While the rest of the city is painted brightly and happily, on top of the bridge a lone figure stands, burdened by his own demons and with death for his only companion. This came to me because I am personally sickened with how society treats suicide. While in a place where they could be seen as a good person, they'll say how much they cared for the victim and how special they were and such. But, I've been in far too many situations where people have treated it as an inconvenience. Two examples that really stick with me are both from last year. While on the bus home, traffic was extremely heavy. A new batch of people got on and it was finally learnt traffic was so heavy because a man had tried to kill himself by jumping from a building and police had turned up to stop him. The main reaction from everyone on the bus was that he was an inconvenience. They said things like "We have other stuff to do, can't he have jumped another day or picked another method!?" The second example was from an AS Theatre Studies class. A student who comes in by train was late due to the train being stopped because someone had thrown themselves in front of it and killed themselves. The student just sat there saying "I wish they'd picked a different day, I couldn't be bothered to deal with having to wait because of them." This student actually wishing this person killed themselves on a different day. While I know not all of society is like this and do understand that, these occurrences just disgusted me so much I had to make a statement on it.
Finally, my thoughts on the actual Museum trip. As I stated earlier, I didn't get as much out of it as I hoped. And that was partially my own fault, though it was unintentional. Because this was a place I visited so often as a child, instead of feeling inspired I only really got pure nostalgic joy from being there. However I am trying to plan some revisits to the museum and most likely revisit a few times, so hopefully I'll be able to do that and get something more from the experience.
