Start at the Beginning

Welcome to my blog where you, my dear readers, can follow me on my journey through my final year of Art School where I will be making a body of work about my chosen subject: Fan Culture! 

Fan Culture with a focus on my fan relationship with pop-group Jedward and the fandom that surrounds them to be more precise.

But firsts things first, I think It’s important to realize about my work is that when I talk about fans and being a fan, I’m talking from a personal point of view being a fan myself. Of course all the research and knowledge and stories from the media, other artists, my friends and networks of fellow fans from my fandom and many others informs it too but I do realize not every fan feels and thinks the way I do or have the same sort of correlation, thoughts, feelings, bond, or whatever with their idol.  Which is precisely why I chose to focus on Jedward and my fan relationship with them and their fandom, so I can create work from a personal point of view about something I’m living though and most conversant about. 

I’m so touched when I write or make something about Jedward and other fans can relate to my own feelings and opinions but I’m not making art that represents the whole fandom and every fan. I think this also alleviates fellow fans from criticism about being a fan. No doubt there will be a lot of criticism and instead of having this shifted onto Jedward fans and fans in general I can step in and justify why something I’ve created is substantial, beautiful, profound, insightful, disturbing or whatever it may be that I’m trying to bring across from my own point of view. It’s also vital to make clear that my work is not work about Jedward, it’s not Fan-Art. It’s art, made by a fan, about the experience of being a fan and I’m using my obsession with Jedward as a vehicle to do so.

I’m very aware that taking the stand that all thoughts, feelings and opinions are my own puts me and my life into the spotlight and makes me extremely venerable… and I find this terrifying. But I also have faith in myself that I’m grounded, self aware, mature and professional enough to be able to make this work, take critique and talk about it in an intelligent and informed way.

 At this early stage I can’t really explain exactly how I am to do this or how successful it will be or what form it’ll take this year is all about thinking, questioning, experimenting and challenging yourself. It’s certainly a challenge.

So wish me luck! And a huge warm THANK YOU to everyone that has and will support me this year- my friends, fellow fans and students, my parents, my lecturers and everyone I’ve ever spoken to about this who hasn’t rolled their eyes or facepalmed it seriously means so much! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you x

And now, allow me to give you the abridged version of my 10 week investigation so far in 9 posts about 9 key works.