Six Degrees of Separation
This project was a university brief during my final year at Bath School of Art & Design, for which I was asked to use the idea that all people in the world are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other.
The project required linking six degrees of separation back to the city of Bath – I wanted to answer the brief in a way that was unexpected, so I tried to follow the darkest and most morbid route possible. Upon extensive research, I found a way to link famous figures from the 60s/70s by way of interaction.
I chose to connect the following six degrees:
Sir Peter Blake, The Beatles, Beach Boys, Ronald Reagan, Charles Manson, and finally Sharon Tate & Roman Polanski. (The links are explained below.)
• The Pop Artist Sir Peter Blake left London to move to a village near Bath in the late sixties.
• Sir Peter Blake famously designed the artwork for The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• The Beatles and The Beach Boys are known to have been influential on each others music. Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys stated that The Beatles' Rubber Soul is "probably the greatest record ever" in his autobiography.
• The Beach Boys performed an a cappella version of the Four Freshmen’s “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring,” at former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's 1985 inaugural ball. They played this same song in tribute to Reagan's wife (and former First Lady) Nancy when she passed away in 2016.
• Charles Manson wrote a song (Never Learn Not to Love) that was recorded by The Beach Boys in 1968. After his Manson Family followers went on a killing spree, his credit as a songwriter was removed. Manson also wrote a letter to Ronald Reagan concerning the War on Drugs bill, stating that his "war should be against pollution" ... "before the pollution destroys all life".
• Finally, members of the Manson Family famously invaded the home of celebrity couple Sharon Tate & Roman Polanski, murdering eight-and-a-half month pregnant Tate, and four others. Polanski was unharmed, as he was working on a project in London.
Artist Proofs
We were able to respond to the brief in whatever way we desired, and I chose to create silkscreen printed posters, as it is a medium that I love to work in. I also felt that I would be able to convey the dark and grungy feeling that I intended to evoke easily within that method of making.
Top to bottom: The Beach Boys, Charles Mason, Roman Polanski & Sharon Tate, and Ronald Reagan.
For these provisional prints, I wanted to ensure that each artwork was strong enough to stand alone, but that they looked as although they belonged together when displayed side-by-side. For that reason, I created the artist proofs with the same dimensions, printing them in A4, with the same aesthetic used for cohesiveness. I used halftones both so that I could screen print highly detailed images by hand, but also for the grungy look that I was going for. Each print uses the same four hand-mixed colours of yellow, red, blue and black to add the detail on top.
Part II
After this provisional section of the project, we were then challenged to take our project and apply it to a social context. I initially found it difficult to reframe the work that I had already completed, but I thought about one of the words in the list; 'charity'. I noticed that three out of the six figures have contributed to marginalising and victimising sectors of society, so I decided to focus on them for the second half of the brief.
I created a series of posters that would be sold as charity fundraising in aid of organisations founded to help victims of different afflictions, each one representing the injustice that each poster's subject is guilty of. Upon research, I found suitable charities for each subject. I felt it was more appropriate for the prints to be in black and white only. I hand printed these at four times the size, going from the artist proof size of A4 up to a massive A1.
Charles Manson
Members of the Manson Family committed a spree of murders in 1969. Charles Manson was a famously racist and generally horrible man, yet remains to be a cult subject of fascination. He was a white supremacist, as evident from the swastika that he had tattooed onto his forehead during his time in prison. Proceeds from the sale of this print are dedicated to Victim Support UK.
Sharon Tate & Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski has been a fugitive from the U.S. Justice system since 1978. He was arrested and charged with the sexual abuse of a 13 yo girl by use of drugs and perversion. He has never been fully held accountable for this, as he has since maintained a reputable career, and has managed to remain a free man by avoiding travelling to countries likely to extradite him to the U.S. 50% of the proceeds from this print are dedicated to The Survivors Trust.
Ronald Reagan
Reagan served two terms as the U.S. President from 1981-89. Reagan’s enforcement of the War on Drugs caused mass incarceration, disproportionately affecting people of colour. Proceeds from the sale of this print are dedicated to Vera Institute of Justice, who are committed to securing equal justice and ending mass incarceration.