This project was fun researching the meaning of nursery rhymes and trying to put my spin on them.
Three Blind mice.
The "three blind mice" were Protestant loyalists (the Oxford Martyrs, Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer), accused of plotting against Queen Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII who was burned at the stake, the mice's "blindness" referring to their Protestant beliefs.
Three blind mice was a challenge, as I had to find 3 sheets of brail. I managed to borrow one sheet from a fellow student, but the challenge was to make three, which I did by photographing one sheet and photoshopping the images onto another image.
Ring a ring of Roses.
Since after the Second World War, the rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the bubonic plague in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before World War II make no mention of this; by 1951, however, it seems to have become well established as an explanation for the form of the rhyme that had become standard in the United Kingdom. Peter and Iona Opie, the leading authorities on nursery rhymes, remarked.
The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have allowed would-be origin finders to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and "all fall down" was exactly what happened.
The line Ashes, Ashes in colonial versions of the rhyme is claimed to refer variously to the cremation of the bodies, the burning of victims' houses, or the blackening of their skin, and the theory has been adapted to be applied to other versions of the rhyme.
In its various forms, the interpretation has entered into popular culture and has been used elsewhere to make oblique references to the plague. In 1949, a parodist composed a version alluding to radiation sickness:
Ring-a-ring-o'-geranium, A pocket full of uranium, Hiro, shima All fall down!
In March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the traditional rhyme was jokingly proposed as the "ideal choice" of song to accompany hand-washing in order to ward off infection.
My idea for this involves using a gas mask and roses made from tissue paper, and maybe a few dead rose petals. For Ring of roses, the challenge was to find a gas mask. I eventually found one, and the image turned out great after trying many different lighting techniques and positions.
Finished images.
