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My initial idea for the FMP is to explore socialism and how it's used in daily life. Furthermore, I will try to answer the question, is socialism radical?
The reason for this is because I notice how everyone has some misconceptions about socialism and try to show people that socialism is all around us and it isn't as terrible as it's portrayed in the media.

To support this theme I have decide to create a large collage, as my final piece. The large collage will show one side of how socialism can help benefit society, whereas the other side will consist of negative comments from media companies being against the idea of socialism.

Here is my final piece for my FMP on the topic "is socialism a radical idea?". The final piece is a large collage consisting of Bernie Sanders and AOC showing support for socialism on the left, with different media outlets showing disapproval on the right. The idea behind this collage was to show how socialism benefits the vast majority of people and the world, thanks to social reforms and popular ideas like free healthcare, transport, taxing the rich and tackling climate change, all represented in the cut-outs. Furthermore, I wanted to show off how media outlets are representing the wealthy corporations by showing bags of cash by each media outlet sign, to show off how they are owned by the rich and not wanting to pay their fair share to benefit the public.

I made cut-outs and painted (using watercolour) or drawn different signs, symbols, objects, people, and their speeches relating to money, power, politics, and public services to make this whole collage. For me, what went well was showing a diverse range of colour and texture to make the cut-outs stand out and positioning the cut-outs on each side along, with the quotes/comments to indicate to the reader which side each person or organisation is on.

For me to improve for next time would create smaller cut-outs because the original plan was to place my interpolation of socialism in the middle with comments disagreeing with coming from each side but the cut-outs were a bit too big so I had to leave some cut-outs.

Another thing to improve would be the background because looking back the white didn't compliment well as I had hoped with the diverse range of colour coming from the cut-outs.

Overall after completing the FMP I felt that I had achieved in trying to answer the question is "Is socialism a radical idea?" by showing what socialism could bring to people, like healthcare and money, and displaying the politician's quotes and making the viewer think about how the idea of socialism isn't as bad as the media portrays, as well as showing how the media can be paid off, by some members of the elite, to portray a false narrative of how socialism is bad for society when really it's about preserving their own self greed.

For my research, I looked up the differences between socialism and communism. The main difference is that socialism is compatible with democracy and liberty, whereas Communism involves creating an ‘equal society through an authoritarian state, which denies basic liberties. One of the places I have researched is on Youtube, especially historical, scientific, political channels like Seeker Daily, now know as NowThis. Here 2 videos of Socialism, up above labelled as 'What is Socialism" and down below labelled as 'Communism vs. Socialism: What's The Difference".

After researching about socialism I have decided to do some portraits of current politicians who identify as Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio - Cortez. Democratic socialism in the west involves participating in democracy to seek an incremental reduction in inequality. It implies a mixture of public sector intervention and private enterprise. After doing these portraits I had decided to do some RISO prints of them, what I felt went well was the texture and tone which allowed them to stand them out and come to life. However, I felt the prints were a bit too dark, to be a part of my final piece but may use RISO in the future.

After doing my portraits I then decided to make some cut-outs to help symbolise what socialism or democratic socialism means to me, what it opposes, what it's for, as well as showing who is against it. To make these cut-outs I drew images out, painted them in watercolour and cut them out. The cut-outs that represent the people against socialism are TV media companies, the reason for me making them is to show how they are supported by the rich and the corporate world and therefore don't always have our best interest, making themselves richer, as well portraying a narrative of how socialism is radical and linking to it to the USSR, whilst also enriching themselves because dismissing social programmes by not taxing the rich only helps them not the public.

Another cut-out I have made consist of money, which represent something that frequent, gives you access and power. This is to remind the audience how useful and important money can be and how it can be used as a way to either harm or help cure the society we live in. This is to remind money can be shared fairly rather than having just the mega-rich and the dirt poor. Other cut-outs I have made include a socialist fist symbol, hammer & sickle symbol (this symbol was used to brand communism) and the Rose. These symbols help represent the rise of the working class or the ordinary person who wants equality.

After making the cut-outs I went off to make some RISO prints of them, in black ink. What went well was being able to show off the texture and the outline of these images to improve I need to work on the background colour of the paper for the print to see what better complemented the prints. For me what went well with the cut-outs were the diversity of colour and range of tone, as well as the simplistic images as it gave off a pop art look towards them.