Call to action:
Find your human identity. Connect yourself to history and community through your interests.
Topic:
I want to show people why I am so interested about how history has effected my current life and how my human identity comes into play. My example for the audience is my experience with homebrewing (and the process: hop harvest) and how I used that experience to contextualize myself within human history. To do this, my audience will be urged to ask themselves questions; WHO, what, when, where, why AM I?
What Interests you about your topic:
Well, the hops idea was brought to me-- I didn't go to it. This summer I participated in a collective that my friends and I organized. The idea is that we would pool our money and do projects that we wanted to do, facilitating our own learning. We did many projects such as canning food, making wine, planting garlic, and harvesting hops.
I felt almost sublime, doing these little projects. Okay, maybe sublime is a little bit over exaggerated, but it felt good. So I asked myself, why does it feel good? At first, I thought that it was the fact that I was connecting myself with the earth, which is definitely important, but maybe not a universal value.
What about the DIY culture? The idea that making things yourself is suddenly better than buying it at the store. Now, even people that aren't biased toward making (like my roommate), place value in doing things yourself.
I kept asking myself why, why, why do I care and why should other people care? I took apart my experience with the TSA project and I mapped the history behind it with the timeline. These projects also made me feel good.
Now, I'm not exactly a history buff, in fact, I don't really even like history. All those dates and memorization, not exactly my thing. But I loved making that timeline and I was sincerely interested and amazed. I was amazed to find out how prohibition of alcohol led up to the popularity of homebrewing and, ultimately, my experience with hop harvesting. So, again, why do I care?
I care because my timeline connected me and my current human experience with the past. Why do I care about the past? Because it has effected my human Identity. The attitudes, thoughts, fears, emotions, and actions of past humans has shaped who I am today. I saw that direct connection when I made my timeline.
Caring about people who have shaped who you are, there's a word for that: Community. Here are some words others say about community:
"With our society moving at a faster and more detached manner due to technology, busy schedules and the frequency at which we change jobs, homes and locations, it makes it harder and harder to feel any sense of community." Source.
"Usually community refers to a group of people living in a common geographical location. This group of people obeys some social norms and some common value among themselves. As such, there are so many communities the world over, separated by languages, cultures, or geographical locations. However, they are related to each other in some way or other, thus making entire world a one, single community.
In a community people live by associating with one another. The feeling of association is a common human feeling. This helps in establishing peace and harmony within a community. Without a feeling of association there will be chaos and disharmony in the society or community. Hence, this point plays an important role in making a lively and vibrant community." -Ajanta Bhattacharyya
List all the possible variables associated with your topic:
(Since I'm so far along, I'm listing the important aspects)
People
Community
History
Fun
Learning
The experience
Human Identity
What sources will you gather data from:
The internet, personal experience, my (homebrew expert) friends, my women's studies prof, family friends, my community.
What solutions exist to solve issues or problems related to your topic:
Community can kind of be a loaded word, so I need to be sure to define exactly what I mean. Even so, there are lots of studies that have to do with community and human identity. But, really, I have already solved the problem. I have already felt that deep connection to my community of humans through both my study on my learning process (hop TSA) and the history behind my experience (timeline).
The additional problems I have is getting people to care. I am making the assumption that people care about people and that may be a bit optimistic. I think I am going to stick with optimism though. I am also making the assumption that, as humans, we need human connection, so I need to fins some good sources on that as well.
What solutions do you propose and how can you motivate your audience to consider the solutions:
I hope that my audience is moved by my experience. Im not sure how to ensure that. I don't want to appear selfish, like it's all about me. Really, it's all about humans. I want to stress the idea of people and their unique identities and community.
The handmade look and hands on approach to format is important to say, "this project is more than me and my experience." I also want to make paper dolls of some people from my community to stress humanity and individuality.
I want to make an installation in a gallery (probably faked with a model or photoshop, but it's the idea that counts). I want to make invitations to a gallery event to get people to come together and interact. Though, so far, my timeline and tsa are somewhat large, I also want to make smaller, precious objects that people will take away with them; they are something tangible, which emphasizes human touch and connection.
Audience:
What is their age?
Where do they live?
What mode of transportation do they use?
Where do they shop for groceries?
What do they do in their spare time?
What is their socio-economic status?
Everyone is my audience. I suppose to do research and ask questions you need time, so the socio-econ status needs to allow that.
Where and How can the audience be reached?
I want to send out an invitation (see my basic sketches). On the invitation there would be a link to a website where you can invite more people; Just enter their address and I'll send an invite. The website will be really basic (ie google).
What are the desired goals or results of the project?
To get people to think differently and to consider their human community and its history in a world where it's easy to isolate yourself from others.
Form:
TSA, Timeline, mapping my immediate community, invite website, playing cards, mobiles, invitation wheel. All in a gallery space where people can convene.
Distribution:
Invitation, internet presence, word of mouth. But I want to keep it people-centric.
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