Visual Narratives - 'The Picture Book', Proposal of Ideas

Being brutally honest, the ratio of work to rest over the christmas break was slightly out of balance, to say the least, meaning visual narratives didn't quite get the amount of attention it needed. But considering one of my resolutions is 'meaningful work & intentional rest', being back in uni is the perfect opportunity to realign that balance and focus more on the latter. 

In regards to my picture book and visual narratives project, I have an idea of which direction I want my work to go, but it's just finding the way to explore and communicate that effectively from now to the finished book.

I want my work to:

• tell the story of Ferrybridge power station, exploring the issues surrounding it and the fact that there are problems with the production and consumption of electricity in this country,
• tell the story of the people in the village, the lives the station has impacted and the consequences of the changes for the locals,
• present a personal and human side to the issue of energy, how the power station has influenced people's lives,
• show the side to the issue that is rarely addressed, that some positive changes for the environment can have negative impacts on people, present the fact that issues always have multiple sides and knock on effects. 

Saying this, I really don't want to create a book that is illustrated but bombards with facts, is full of written stories or prose about the issues explored, or contains dry information on the topic. Instead I want my book to be more subtle, to present the stories in an interesting and engaging way, but more in the tone of voice and feelings of the images, as opposed to factually written accounts accompanied by images. I want the book to be able to serve as a visually appealing object, but with the story of the place and it's people weaved carefully into it. 

I would love to take this brief as an opportunity to create more abstract and evocative work that is more subtle in it's meaning; something that I did start to try and explore previously with this project but perhaps didn't really succeed at just yet. I want to push that side of my practice and move away from more figurative and obvious approaches.