This university project is a response to my dissertation. It is a social commentary highlighting the lack of redistribution of wealth in the Premier League due to the TV rights and highlighting the growing number of supporters being priced out of a traditionally working class game.
I have focussed on the football scarf as an iconic object in the game. It is a visual display of allegiance and loyalty to a club with its practicalities irrelevant; instead becoming an extension of the person holding it, a symbol of unity with those around them, a display of identity.
I have however, re-contextualised the scarf into a medium of dissent by including subversive imagery of those seemingly responsible for this growing detachment. To do this I have taken the brand imagery from SkySports, BTSport and the Premier League, chosen in response to a new £5 billion TV deal, and have deconstructed them into simple colour forms with each brand being represented on a stripe of the scarf; raising the question of whether this money will be redistributed to benefit supporters through reduced ticket prices.
Due to the connections with fans, I hand embroidered the entire scarf to show the obsessive dedication of supporters and contrast that with the mass-produced scarves seen around stadiums. I also felt it was vital to remove the scarf from its vernacular context, mimicking the removal from, and inaccessibility of, the ground. The act of placing the scarf, an active part in showing support and allegiance, behind glass transforms it into an inaccessible, and passive object. By being framed it can no longer be experienced fully by the fan, they no longer get the same sensory connection with the object that they would have had previously.