Visual Narratives - 'Space' - brief - initial thoughts

I've picked the word 'space' as a starting point for this visual narratives brief. One of the main reasons I decided on that word is because it's so open, although I have decided that I want to consider it in terms of three dimensional space not outer space. I have actually found that it's openness makes it quite challenging to tackle as a subject. It also makes conversations about it difficult as well; it being quite an abstract concept in many ways means that people either seem to struggle to keep up conversation about it, or they pigeon hole it into something very literal (which is not necessarily a bad thing). 

Nevertheless, over the first day or two I did start to generate some ideas, or come across notions that i think could be explored further. There were a couple of things that came out of the first few conversations I had with people that I thought could be interesting. 

Firstly I was discussing with someone how very busy spaces such as supermarkets or department stores can, due to the disassociation created between oneself and the mass of other people filling that space, become dehumanising to some extent. Sound in busy spaces can become a sort of white noise, and similarly, visually, one stops considering the people around oneself as they create a sort of mass of shapes and obstacles one might have to navigate.

Someone else said in conversation - "do you ever worry that there won't be enough space?" This question wasn't elaborated upon and no specific location or event was given and I found that as a result it was quite funny in its incongruity. I felt like it had potential to form the basis of a picture book but couldn't quite put my finger on why.

Another notion arising from that same conversation was how people and animals sometimes put themselves in situations/ spaces which are actually very uncomfortable or difficult or even dangerous. This was sparked by discussion of an episode of 'Planet Earth II', a portion of which was dedicated to the world's largest penguin colony on Zavadovski island. The penguins had to risk their lives every time they ventured out to get food due to their only route off the island into the sea was to sort of jump/dive out over jagged rocks into very choppy water, even during storms. 

I happened to watch another episode of 'Planet Earth II' which had a bit about a massive locust swarm and how it devours everything in a certain area/s. This lead me to think about how a space is changed or altered by whatever inhabits it, and thought that locusts, how different a space appears after a locust swarm has passed through it and eaten everything and the notion of a swarm in general could make for an interesting topic for a picture book. I had an idea of how a series of aesthetically pleasing images could be created based on the notion of a swarm using very simplistic imagery; employing the use of uniform dots for the swarm, positioned differently over a square (representing a patch of land), and scribbled up some examples in a notebook.

 

I realised that having an idea this fully formed was jumping the gun massively so left it and thought I might just start researching swarms, or locusts in general.

I have discovered since that the places I might be able to visit which would be relevant to this focus (Sheffield butterfly house, Tropical world) all seem a bit naff or designed predominantly for children and would probably not be that actually be that great for research. I have since abandoned this idea and will start fresh again with new lines of inquiry.