Proposal

Your proposal for the Fourth Plinth should take the form of a formal document with illustrations of your proposed idea.

You should use formal language and set your proposal out in sections as identified below.

Section 1: Outline the context for your work within the guidelines of the brief, including your interpretation of the plinth and the location. It should demonstrate your clear understanding of the purpose for the proposal.

For this project I looked into the six provided artists and discovered about Yinka Shonibare’s work. He uses his African roots and his life in England to influence his work; I wanted to use this and look at my roots and and find a way of using this to creating something for the Fourth Plinth.

Idea of the fourth plinth

Section 2: Outline of your response to the proposal within the context of section 1. What do you propose to do and what is the theme for your sculpture? How will this engage the public?

I first looked at my history by finding out about my hometown of Worksop by going to the library. I felt this wasn’t related to my pathway of theatre design so I looked at theatre and mostly into Pantomime, I didn’t feel I could do anything with this and changed my idea to look at Traditional English crafts, this is to remind people of traditional crafts and how people used to earn a living. After looking at different crafts I looked at decided a hat would be good for the Fourth Plinth because everyone used to wear hats and I wanted nostalgia to come into it. The type of hat I chose was a top hat after looking at different traditional hats.

What I am going to do?

Section 3: Visualisation of your work. What will the work look like? Which materials do you propose to use, how do you propose to manufacture the work?

The hat would be made of felt and would be made by using traditional hat making methods and people would help make the hat by being shown by people who still make hats like this. Stephen Jones would be a person to help. There would be a big hat making extravaganza in the middle of Trafalgar Square. When made the hat will be put on top of the Fourth Plinth and then will be surrounded in glass to keep the hat safe and dry.

MPT

Section 4: The implications of the work. How will the work be attached? What health and safety considerations are there, and how are they to be answered? Limitations of your chosen materials and how do you propose to ensure safe and continual presentation of your work?

Practicalities and health and safety

The health and safety implications would be mostly from making the hat in Trafalgar Square, the number of people and the materials used could be dangerous if inhaled and the steaming machine does get hot so would have to have safety gear available. It would need to be stable and well attached so that it could not fall off and cause harm to the general public or other property.  As mentioned the material which would be used is felt, which would not maintain its shape in the British weather.  Glass would be used so the hat maintains its shape.  Research of the grade of glass so that it would not break would be essential.  This is again to protect the public from shattered glass e.g if vandals attacked the piece.  There would need to research into appropriate insurances and permission to take this opportunity to display work in this very public of places.

Section 5: Illustrations of your final proposed ideas. Digital image of your work on the Fourth Plinth.