Reflecting what the images in the zine represent.

 

The Age of Pioneers and The Age of Conquest. 

British rule was established by the navy and seafarers who sailed the oceans. This was the case with the Spanish's during the 16th century with the  Conquistadors such as Hernando Cortes and the invasion of Mexico and the Aztecs. The same is true of the British navy which sailed both The Atlantic and Pacific looking for quicker trade routes. In looking for this, Capt. Cook and his vessel The Endeavor discovered Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Tahiti and Newfoundland in 1769. 
To illustrate this, I want to use a model of Capt. Cooks ship The Endeavor. To reinforce the areas that would become British through pioneers such as Cook, I will use a map which has all the landmasses under British control seen. 

The Age of Commence. 

The Golden Age of British commercial trade and empire rule was the late 19th century. Britain was a global giant that had control over India, parts of Africa, Australiana, Canada and large parts of Asia such as Hong Kong and Borneo. The Napoleonic War of the early 19th century saw Britain become the dominant European state and France would be defeated and her navy significantly drawn back. 

The streets of Britain were awash with new products to serve the population explosion due to The Industrial Revolution and the  new consumer boom of the 19th century. Tinned food appeared for the first time in the 19th century and well known brands of food we know from today such as Cadbury's and Lyons.

For this image, I want to use two famous brands of the time, which were transported in horse and carts around the 19th and early 20th century. This image shows the brand names which we know today such as Colemans and Robinsons benefiting from the empire and its trade routes both at home and aboard. The concept of advertising began in the 19th century and manufacturers took advantage of this by putting adverts on vehicles.  

The Age of Intellect

Due to the advances in technology due to the industrial revolution, new ways of looking at the world were created such as the telescope, microscope and ways of measuring light and time such as watches were created. This led to expansion around the globe that fueled ideas and the intellect. William Shakespeare would listen to sailors stories of far off lands in the Americas and other parts of the world and add ideas in his plays such as The Tempest. He would create characters out of the indigenous people of these lands such as Caliban in The Tempest. All these advances led to "The Enlightenment" of the C18. Ideas such as creating factories to maximize production of goods created a consumer boom and a market. 

The Age of Affluence 

The economy benefited from Britain being the dominant global nation from the C18-early C20. This couldn't last forever and the good times had to end eventually. The most prosperous period of our history was the Victorian ere of the 19th century. Britain had a queen who was the Empress of India and ruled a quarter of the globe. The image below shows a bust of the queen in all her pearls and finery. 

The Age of Decadence. 

This age is represented by a vanitas photograph. This style is based on a Renaissance style of painting which showed all earthly pleasures to be had. However, the paintings also came with warnings of pending moral decline, death and uncertainty. I researched all the items in the image. The colour orange represents decline and corruption. The skull represents decay and death and finally. the money, wine and mask represents frivolity and decadence. I decided to use this style of photography to represent the nation state-instead of the individual.

The Age of Decline.

To highlight this, I used a copy of a statue which actually exists in Glasgow of The Duke of Wellington who fought Napoleon at Waterloo and won. The statue when it was erected in the 19th century was meant to remind the people of Scotland of this victory which paved the way for the British Empire to thrive. After Waterloo, France was defeated as a global superpower. 

In the 1980s, it became common for the people of Glasgow to put traffic cones on the horses head and the dukes-this demonstrated how figures who represented the empire are no longer seen with such reverence. The empire was truly over.