Masters Research

  Once I had decided on the possible subjects I could do for my Masters, we needed to create a set of three posters to describe the possible areas we could go in. Because I had one overarching area that cemented the possible areas, that being the sea, I decided that for each of the posters the background or main colour used should be a blue for the sea. I didn't just want to have the backgrounds be just one blue colour, instead I wanted to create a gradient of blues and greens as these would represent the sea better. Along with this because I wanted to create these posters by hand, using the computer very little, I decided to make the background using a technique where you take tissue paper and wet it on the paper with a sponge then the ink will seep through onto the paper and create this really interesting and sea like texture that works really well for what I wanted it for. As you can see the water and tissue paper technique creates this really interesting and water like texture

  For my next idea I wanted to keep with the theme of the sea, but this time I decided to see if I could connect it with my interests in space. When I was thinking about this topic I began to think about stargazing and how sailors used to use the stars for navigation, this really interested me and made me think if this type of navigation was still being used. Doing some very quick research on this subject I found some fascinating information, before accurate navigation, navigating the high seas with no landmarks was extremely difficult and caused many ships to be wrecked and lost. In 1714 after the loss an entire British fleet due to navigation errors the British government passed the "Longitude Act" that authorised money prizes for anyone who could solve sea navigation. 

  It was really interesting reading through this article about this phenomenon of people being happier or having better mental health when they are near a body of water, the article talks about how people living with 1km or 5km are "associated with better general and mental health" this got me onto thinking about which countries are the happiest in the world and if this was to do with how close the countries are to bodies of water. In this ranking conducted by World Population Review we can see that the happiest country is Finland and looking at a map of their country I think my stupid hypothesis that surely the happiest country in the world must have a lot of water is true. While this is very basic and the most top layer of the surface of this subject it is still really interesting that large bodies of water seem to have this effect on us and our mental health, I think this project could be really interesting if look into our seeming love affair with water and what causes th

looking at all my mood board I think the subjects that interest me the most are the sea and the connection between the sea and mental health, while I may at first connected the pollution of the sea and harming of sea creatures to the decline of people's mental health I now want to look more at how going to the coast and being near large bodies of water may improve people's wellbeing and mental health. From my own anecdotal experience when I am near the sea and sat by the coast watching the waves a sense of calm comes over me.  Just from a quick Google search typing in "sea and mental health" you can find loads of articles about this sense of calm and happiness that comes over people when they are near the sea or large bodies of water. I think it would be a really interesting project to learn more about this feeling that people get and why exactly it happens.

  Keeping with the theme of the sea I want to research further into plastic pollutions in the sea and the issues it is causing not only to the sea creatures but also ourselves. This is a very topical subject at the moment with groups like extinction rebellion creative massive upheavals in our cities and parliament, along with this it feels like everyone is talking about global warming and want some kind of change to begin to happen. I feel like I could create a very strong project about this subject, focusing on one problem like plastic in our oceans is a good idea as pollution is such a massive area that trying to do a whole project on it could easily become massive and too large to finish. I think for this I really need to focus down on what I want to say and do with this, I can't just say "our oceans are full of plastic, this is bad!" there isn't anything to this it is quite one-note as most people already know this and want to change. So what exactly do I want to