305 Summer Task 2: Power

Power: either think about  (a)the differences between your archive and the “official” ones that define public culture; or (b) think of the differences between your personal memories/sense of identity and what defines in you wider culture.

(b) Visit a shopping center, choose a shop and look at clothing or toy collections. Think about how the location makes you feel, but also address:

1. What stories are the collections trying to tell? Think of message, who is saying it

2. How do these connect to your sense of self? Why? By what means is this possible?

3. How are the collections / toys / clothes assembled?

4. What can you do in the space?

5. What do these ‘stories’ say about collective identity?

6. Does the commercial space and building make the messages (on identity etc) both safe and the ‘official’ voice?

Record your thoughts and reflections on the differences between the museum or shopping center and their narratives – their stories of national and cultural identity – and yours. Do these official channels represent you? What are the values in both stories? How do they differ? What are their limitations? Gather and collate your notes, pictures and reflections in a diary, on your laptop or blog.

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I visited a local Toy store in Coventry city center. hoping to have a nice sweeping sense of nostalgia when compared to a more serious museum, while educational but would have less of a sense power about the whole work for a bit wide over look at the kind of power and scale that art can have on my life as a whole (being an art student, and later a media student producing another form of art along with my part 1 being about art handed down to me) but i am also a child of pop culture and its hard for me to ignore the call of it.

So choosing a toy store was a good choice. given how as much things have changed toys tend to stay the same but get either shiny, more buttons or surprisingly more complex. The more pessimistic side of me is simply saying that the large over arching message of a toy store/pretty much any place like that is “buybuybuy!” and that is the main point of somewhere like this.

But there more optimistic side concentrates less on the capitalistic and more on the sense of wonder toys can bring. that is my main memory is the joy and excitement that comes from playing with kids toys. These come to me most of the time when ever i see the kind of toys i had as a child and give comforting feelings of fun and the like.

Of course they are arranged in a tight nit order, with the more kid friendly toys on the lower shelf’s and the ones with small parts that are breakable are higher up for the parents and older kids to reach. with a collection being separated in to themes (such as Power Rangers, Lego) along with that into boys and girls section’s with the stereotypical blueand pink colors.

In this space what can be done is pretty much just window shopping unless you plan to buy something, after all its just a store.

That a mixture of capitalism and child smiles that can sell a whole lot of things. building on that quickly to both attach to a parents nostalgia and a child’s wide eyed wonder. After all things like Lego and Power Rangers have been around long enough for a few generations to both enjoy them and thus can not only enjoy them as a family but share there story’s about how they enjoy these pop culture icons.

With the corporate and  capitalist agenda going strong through out the store it really shines though that this is a big image of happy family/happy safe fun for kids.