I chose to study the Sperm Whale as it is a mammal that is not only present in Shakespeare's work, but also appears frequently in the news for various reasons. I began by researching general facts and exploring the obvious such as size and I created a large wire model of a beached whale.
A few weeks into my project there was a mass beaching of Sperm Whales of the coast of the UK, this influenced where my project went next. I researched what happens to a Sperm Whale when it beaches and found out that they frequently explode due to a build up of gasses. This led me to create a multimedia model of an exploding beached whale.
From this I also looked into phrases and sayings surrounding the issue and created a cartoon based on the phrase "As fat as a beached whale".
The quote from Shakespeare that inspired me to study the Sperm Whale was "as white as whale his bone" from Love's labour's Lost. This refers to the whaling industry that was prominent in Shakespeare's time. Sperm Whales were hunted for ivory and spermaceti. Whaling is still a problem with countries such as Japan today, so for my final piece I created a Lino cut of a whale's tail entangled in a harpoon.
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