Year
April 2021
Skills
Branding
Projection Mapping
Video Editing
Event Planning
Collaboration
Fashion Design
Screenprinting
Copywriting
Marketing
Studio 352
Studio 352 was an interactive art experience exploring the subjectivity of memory and nostalgia. For this event, I wanted to say thank you and goodbye to the city I grew up in. With the collaboration of Laila Fakhoury and The How Bazar, I created a multi-faceted art gallery, pop-up shop, and celebration to share with the Gainesville community before I moved to New York.
For the event I created: the branding for all of the promotional materials, a sustainable fashion line of reworked secondhand pants, a thirty minute long short film, and six 18 x 24 inch posters exploring the themes of the gallery.
Despite being rained out and having to move the entire gallery indoors last minute, the event was still a massive success. In the 5 hours we held Studio 352, well over 500 people attended the event and we completed over $3000 dollars in sales between my pop up and the How Bazar's internal sales.
The Concept—
I've always been fascinated by memories and the relationship that we have to them. About to leave my hometown for NYC, I was doing a lot of reflecting. After extensive research on the psychology and science of memories, I began to think about the duality and subjectivity of memories and nostalgia.
Nostalgia can be a huge comfort to people, and we definitely view our past through a rose colored lens. I wanted to capture that dreamlike feeling associated with your memories— both in the branding, and in the whole event.
The Concept: Branding
For the branding, I created a texture overlaying photographs from mine and other people's memories. This ties to the way our brains process and reconstruct memories. I decided to use the silhouette to highlight the importance that people play in our memories.
For the typography I decided to use the typefaces from my Twin Blush branding to align the event visually with my brand.
(Source photos)
The Marketing—
With the help of Laila and my twin sister, Emily McGee, we marketed the event across multiple platforms— digitally on social media, email chains, and local publications; physically in the community at local businesses through flyers and life size cardboard cut outs; as well as environmentally with sidewalk guerilla marketing the day before the event across UF campus.
The Marketing:
Social Media Commercial
We also shot and aired a social media commercial
and photoshoot for Twin Blush Collection 1. For the shoot, we worked with 4 local photographers and diverse crowd of 15+ models.
The Commercial and photoshoot were shared across instagram by all of the models and other creatives in the community. It created hype surrounding the fashion line and subsequently encouraged people to come to Studio 352.
Video by Khary Khalfani
Photos by RÜTS
Photos by Lawren Simmons
The Event—
Studio 352 was open to the public from 6-11 PM on April 16th. We transformed the inside of the How Bazar into an interactive experience with art installations and projection mapping. A pop up shop of Twin Blush Collection 1, prints, and artwork were available for sale. The event also featured live DJ's, a dance floor, food catered by Chef JJ's Creations, an interactive community collage wall, and bring-your-own-clothes free screen-printing of Twin Blush designs.
Photos by Khary Khalfani, Tatum Homer-Dibble, Emily McGee, and Taylor McGee
The Event: Short Film Projection Mapping
For the gallery, I created a 30 minute short film using videos I have taken. I used videos from my best memories as well as some that were more mundane. I also used videos from some of my friends and their memories.
I overlayed the videos creating a dreamlike and disorienting effect. I wanted to capture the way that nostalgia can be comforting, but that our memories are never 100% accurate because of the way that our minds store and retrieve information. Every time you remember something your brain completely reconstructs the memory, and often mixes it with other memories you have stored.
We projection mapped the video onto the walls of the dance floor, allowing guests to step in front of the projections, distort the video, and create an ever-changing picture. The video looped 10 times throughout the night but was viewed differently each time. This interactive element speaks to the fact that your present circumstance can change how you view your memories.
Photos by Emily McGee, and Taylor McGee
The Event: Free Screenprinting
I wanted people to interact and connect with my brand, Twin Blush, so I provided free screen-printing for two hours at the event. To access this opportunity, guests had to share a post promoting Studio 352 on instagram and bring their own garment to screen-print on. I also had a box of shirts for $5 for anyone who forgot a garment.
I gave everyone a choice of my two most popular Twin Blush designs. We collaborated to figure out the placement and orientation of the design on their garment. I pulled the first two passes of the print and they pulled the last pass. Before they left I made sure everyone who screen-printed had the instructions for how to cure and take care of their newly printed garment.
Photos by Tatum Homer-Dibble
The Event: The Gallery
For the gallery I created six 18 x 24 inch posters. Each of the posters explored a different important memory of mine. I developed the posters solely based on the memories and associations I had of the time, place, and people from each memory.
To the left is the mind map for the poster I created that represented the Summer I met my girlfriend. I titled the piece "July 2019".
I used these associations to source photographs from online and from my old pictures. The photos I sourced for "July 2019" are pictured left as well. I digitally collaged together these photos to create an impression, a new picture, of my memory. These posters represented the memories to me— and everyone else was free to interpret them however they wanted.
My goal was to create imagery using a process that mirrored the way our brain processes when we remember something. Collage was the natural choice as it allowed me to build and piece together a whole memory/image from disjointed and random pieces and scraps.
July 2019
London, Paris, Athens
12 Years
180 NW 84th Ave
4 AM
In the Car
The Event: Interactive Community Mural
To create another place of interaction for guests of the event, I created the space for a collaborative community collage mural. I wanted guests to feel more connected to the event and the theme of the event— memories and nostalgia.
To echo the medium I used in my pieces, I let people use my collage supplies to collaborate and make images based on how they interpreted the theme.
A sign next to the mural urged people to participate and that there were no rules. I wanted to see how people would respond to the theme as well as work together in a collaborative space.
