Research Module 1st Term- Themes

My first project was to come up with themes I am interested in exploring for my MA. We were told they must be deep not to general and have three chosen images for each theme with no more than 50 words explaining our choices.

I had no idea what they they meant by theme, theme is not subject matter and is general in its very nature. "Theme" is an umbrella that its subjects sit under, the theme being what the subjects have in common.

It is also quite scary to make decisions so early on and be stuck with them so I had a hard time with this project.

I narrowed it down to the following four.

Spectacle
Bower Bird
Censorship
Facade

Spectacle/
What makes a spectacle? Here I have shown pictures of a theatre, a car crash and a public hanging. I am interested in the relationship between the spectacle and the spectator, the times of complete detatchment and when the spectator becomes part of the specatcle itself.
Bowerbirds
/http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1310855/How-male-bowerbirds-use-optical-illusions-attract-mate.html
I've used Bowerbird as a symbol of collectors and their collections. Bowerbirds collect and decorate their bowers with shell, stones and other natural ornaments to attract the female. The satin bowerbird tends to only collect blue debris to match their own blue appearance. I think this absolutely fascinating and drew me to think about the way we nest, collect and accumalate and the different reasons surrounding why we do this. In some cases we can be defined by our objects but I wonder if in other cases they are used to fill a void. I knew a girl who collected penguins, soft toy penguins, photos of penguins, pottery penguins... I could never really fathom why...
Censorship/
The interesting thing about the history surrounding censorship is how telling it can be about the society at the time. There is a lot of humour to be found in censorship also and I like to put humour in my work. Playing around the idea of having a sense censored may prove interesting. If we are unable to use our voices it forces us to consider other methods of communicating, our gestures and our expressions become more articulated. You minimize one thing and the other become more heightened like squeezing a balloon.
Facade/
The word facade can mean many things which is exactly why I chose it. I love how it can relate to both an object and a human as I think design is about trying to correlate the two. I am drawn to people that appear to be hiding a secret, the idea of what happens behind closed doors could provide endless material to explore. I like people to suprise me and challenge my perceptions, we all have habit of falling into stereotyping when we first meet people when really we have no idea who they are or what they are into, which is why I have chosen one of my images of a bearded cross dresser. The picture of the building shows chipped of paintwork revealing the brick undernath I think this links very well with the cross dresser. Hiding, revealing, illusion and deception are very exciting things to explore in design and I feel facade can relate to all of these words.