Tara Hughes

1. One word borrows another
Urban poetry

The proposal is to produce a collection of contemporary poems
constructed through the interaction of the thoughts, ideas
and feelings of my local community as they walk through
the public space of a subway.

Running along the walls of each underpass would be a strip
containing 25 writing panels for passers-by to write upon.
In creating an interaction of thoughts between strangers,
each person would 'borrow' up to 3 words from the previous
sentence, then cover these words with coloured strips and
carry them over to construct a new sentence. For example;

One WORD borrows another
The repetition of a WORD connects one line to the next

By the end, a running dialogue would form an urban poem.
To assist in the project, I would hope to get on side the
Camberwell based arts organisation 'Creative Routes' who
help to provide a creative outlet for people with mental
health issues. The intention is that people from their
creative writing group will want to collaborate with the
project.

The final aim is to produce a community led poetry book
encouraging social interaction and creative expression.


2. Shadenfreude
DO NOT FLICK

Schadenfreude is a pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
The emotion is considered much of a taboo whilst the media consistently
offers us opportunities to feel it eg. watching humiliating tasks
on reality TV shows, reading scandelous exploits in the tabloids
and relishing in embarrassing snaps of celebs in women's magazines.

Looking toward the idea of temptation within the theme and in particular
the influence of weekly women's mags, the project proposal is to produce
life-size flick books of the current, light-hearted misfortunes of
people in the public eye. For example, John Prescott caught having
an affair with his secretary, Naomi Campbell falling on the catwalk,
or Paris Hilton caught in a bikini with cellulite.

The cover of the flick books would be a parody in the style of 'Heat'
or 'Now' and would be positioned in various locations around London
where passers-by would be asked be asked to tell me when to stop 'flicking'.
The project questions the media's influence in tempting us into watching
the humiliating, embarrassing and humorous small-scale misfortunes of others.
How far would we go in watching the fall of a celebrity?

The final outcome might be photographic or information based graphics
recording observations and public reactions.