FMP initial thoughts: glass or ice wishbone/ not bathing but drowning/ wacky waving inflatable fascist

For my Year 2 Final Main Project (FMP), I want to create two honest personal pieces that resonates on a collective psyche level. 

Piece one is a glass wishbone/ clitoris sculpture. The fragility, transparency and reflectiveness of glass is why it feels like the perfect choice as a medium. And a feminist tone wishbone feels like the perfect form for my own expression right now. Because in an era fraught with existential dread, climate crisis and geopolitical tension, it can feel dangerous to wish or create anything. 

Black glass wishbone it is. I feel drawn to black because it represents a void empty of hope. And also because it more traditionally represents a host of paradoxical qualities; death and magic, loss and power.

Common sense dictates, due to the labour intensity and high cost of working on a large scale with glass, that I am going to make a smaller maquette wish bone initially. It takes a staggering 7 hours to cast 1 inch³ of glass. So if I do decide to scale this up as a piece, I will need to have the larger mold ready for firing over the Easter holidays.

I've created a positive maquette using sculptors wax and will repeat the same plaster casting as before to make an investment mold. 

If the glass approach fails, I'll make a large ice mould and create a melting black ice wishbone for the installation instead.

I'm not exactly sure about how I'd like to curate it yet; but some initial photos gave me the idea to nestle the glass piece in a mat of my hair, creating a visceral, charged and uncomfortable juxtaposition. I am just pleased as punch that when curated this way woth the right light source that it inescapably looks like a pussy with the shadow casting like labia. 

Piece two is an interactive installation with an inflatable sculpture. Maybe with conductive paint. I am going to rework a found object, a kneeling mannequin, attaching a fabric upper body which will be in various states of inflation. It would be ideal if the state of inflate could correlate with how folks react with the installation. But that's going to take a while to figure out. To be honest all I can think about at the moment is how a 1 armed wacky waving inflatable time man would look like a nazi salute. And that feels pretty fucking on the money. Honestly, this second piece isn't resolved beyond initial ideas at the moment. But it feels good as a starting point, and I'm excited to start making. It feels like the wacky waving idea in general adds a comedy depth to the installation concept and I like that because it generates ambiguity and ease of connection with audience.

The last piece I had in mind is a ceramic bowl, like an old fashioned washing basin,  with a human head submerged in it. It's an absract nod to the sense of drowning in existential angst that is hanging about in psyche space. And it's a literal reference to climate change and rising sea levels.

I'd love to cast my own head and throw my own bowl. I'll chat with the ceramics tech about what's possible.