I am currently a first year Fine Art student at the Manchester School of Art. I have been assigned a new project titled 'Unit X' where it is key for me to keep a blog of my research and progress along the way. I have chosen to create work towards the theme of 'Appropriation', which will be part of an exhibition at Federation House in Manchester. I will work collaboratively with other students on my course, as well as students from Art History and Curation.
I chose this theme after having a taster session on Wednesday the 18th of March, where I briefly met a member of each of the group themes, were people from the Art History and Curation would explain what the subject was about. These themes were:

• Memory
• Everyday
• Ruins
• Appropriation
• Chance
• Time

I initially wanted to pick 'Time' as I thought I could make work towards that concept, but after seeing what the Appropriation group had to offer, I thought it was probably easier for me to relate past works that I have created to that theme. I only knew what this term meant vaguely so I have been looking into brief definitions of what it could mean.

The group presenter had several images displayed that I found intriguing, I was particularly drawn in by the links to one of my favourite artists Cindy Sherman. It was explained that Sherman was linked to appropriation as she uses the imitation of B-movies and celebrity photos. To me imitation is a key element in appropriation, as you are recreating an image of something or someone else.

I also saw works by Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and some collage artists, and it got me thinking about how appropriation can be translated into many different practices of art. I will research a bit more into artists I can relate to appropriation and report back upon them.
In my own development of work so far I have chosen to restart all over again with ideas and themes. I work in the time based art field and still want to continue this practice but I want to branch out from things I have looked into in the past. I feel like I am stuck in the same circle of work and I want this project to open new doors. In my studio I went in and ripped everything off my walls as quick as I could to escape referring back to old research. I have filmed this and you can watch it at the link below: