Week Seven
Cornwall Park
Site Visit
To re situate within my research starting again through Design Practice II I visited my site in which I am designing for, Cornwall Park. I harvested some dye ingredients to test, but more importantly began observing the people that wwre using the space, and putting myself in the shoes on what I would want as a product that connects me to the place that surrounded me.
I had the goal to create a product that 'felt like' Cornwall park, a way that you could take something away that felt like the park and emulate its essence.
I noticed that the park was a place of connection, and many people were with people and that connection was shared between each other, and the nature that surrounded them.
Natural Dyeing
Test Swatches
Using the natural dye ingredients that I foraged and some other ingredients that could be found at the cafe, like kumara skins and onions skins, I created a variety of multi ingredient dyes.
I used two different mordants and then created 'punnets' of natural dyes combinations. There was some variation is colours, but minimal between mordants. The photos captured do not do justice to the subtle shade changes that are present.
*Week Three note; Upon looking back at this, I wonder if creating a reference of all of the different dyes at Cornwall Park could be a beneficial piece of work that would serve as an interesting interactive element for people visiting the park and as a starting point for my thesis.
Creating A Brief
The most important thing that I created this week was a brief for what I aimed to carry out for my DP2 project.
I want to create a product that would go into Cornwall park gift shop, and I have buy in from them to make this happen as well.
I have set different criteria in which needs to be met in my final output, such as being made with Cornwall Park only materials, and tie into an experience touch point.
Creating this created good context and grounding for what I want to achieve and gave me a more clear direction going forward
*Week Two Note; This brief has sent my into a realisation that I was not really aligned with the over arching goal I wanted to achieve and I have to revisit this.
Reflection
The key of week one was getting back into making and restating myself into my practice after having a couple weeks away from it. It was important to get making because I think best through making and articulating my ideas in a physical way whether that be something as simple and a big brain dump. It is important for me to ge tout of my head and get my thoughts into something.
Next week I aim to get much more specific wth my making and carry out the objectives of my brief with some quick fire prototyping and observations.