DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 20

Collect material from each category and pair them with a different source, and try to use every source. (Don't just google everything.)

a. piece of design/work made by a Black queer person.
b. a piece of design/work made by a public/community or doesn't have a clear author
c. made by a minority in the country in which you live (or grew up in) (this could be you)
d. that is made by somebody who is not able-bodied
f. a memory, memorabilia, family, personal (draw a picture or write a descrip(on of)

Source
•from internet
•scan from a book
•photograph
•on the street
•bring an object
•from your cultural history
•family story
•memories

CHUCK CLOSE - 'Big Self-Portrait' (acrylic on canvas)

practice

ASSIGNMENT WEEK 38

a. piece of design/work made by a Black queer person.

Campbell Addy is a London based photographer & filmmaker born and raised in South London. His work follows unique narratives and authentic emotions in nature, with a focus on distinctive casting and under-represented faces.

b. a piece of design/work made by a public/community or doesn't have a clear author

c. made by a minority in the country in which you live (or grew up in) (this could be you)

STELLA GEPPERT - "Systemizing Social Space"

For Stella Geppert, the act of drawing is a sculptural imprint of social and physical presence. The body’s sensory ability to “think its way into” space as well as into other bodies, materials, substances, and the matter is an important aspect of Stella Geppert’s oeuvre, which is connected to sculpture, drawing, and choreography. Physical techniques, which work with the body’s intelligence, are intertwined with communicative interaction of bodies in space and “relational investigation”.

In the interactive piece "Systemizing Social Space', she invited the public to interact with the actors within the space.

d. that is made by someone who is not able-bodied

Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer. He made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others, which hang in collections internationally. Close also created photo portraits using a very large format camera.

In 1988 a spinal blood clot left Close almost completely paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. A brush-holding device strapped to his wrist and forearm, however, allowed him to continue working.

MERYEM SLIMANI

ASSIGNMENT WEEK 39

DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 27

A) Document an object that tells a story about your cultural or family history. You can choose to document it visually via photography, drawing, video or audio.

B) Document the same object in writing. It can be an anecdote, (family) memory, historical research or a combination of all.

-Document A) and B) Hotglue before next week's lesson.

I was given this ribbon by my mother a few years ago, when she started giving Mental health awareness lectures to students at the international school she works for as a nurse.

The green ribbon is the international symbol for mental health awareness. People wear the green ribbon to show colleagues, loved ones or simply those you walk past that they care about mental health. It can also be worn in memory of a loved one.

I've never taken the ribbon of my jacket since and I wear it in memory of my grandfather (my mother's dad), who committed suicide during my mother's first pregnancy. Mental health illness is part of my family history, which is why I guess my close relatives are such big advocates for mental health awareness.

In the past years I have had experienced multiple panic attacks and this ribbon also reminds me of my support system (family) and that I can turn to them whenever I need to talk. It also reminds me to pay attention to others and listen when someone is not feeling well.

GREEN RIBBON: MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS

ASSIGNMENT WEEK 40

1. What does invisibility and silence mean for you?

- Silence in chosen environment & people that surround you
- Silence within families, broken family relationships
- invisibility through physical appearance -> unstable whiteness
-> your true self stays invisible to outsiders
- connects to code switching

2. How do you feel colonialism closest in your life?

- Victoria -> architecture in Brazil -> there are rooms in the house for maids (colonial architecture)
- personally -> family history: part guyanese/british (colonial history)
- experiences in dutch class -> pointing out the accent of surinamese dutch speakers but nitpicking the parts of the culture that benefit the dutch (food)

3. How to hear/look/feel for what isn't said/seen/felt.

- go to the places of silence
- body language
- talk to people you usually wouldn't

FILM WATCHED IN CLASS

ARTHUR JAFA - "Dreams are colder than death"

FILM RECOMMENDATIONS

JULIE DASH - Daughter of the Dust
SPIKE LEE - Crooklyn

DEADLINE: OCTOBER 03

Generate new individual content based on the collectively chosen keyword/ category: It can be from personal documents, family documents, cultural documents, school documents, marginalised history, fabricated, speculative etc. Write a few lines of your interpretation of the collective keyword, collect in a file/moodboard and upload to the Students work folder on Teams.

FAMILY TREE / HISTORY

WOLFF'S (MY DAD) FATHER'S SIDE

1959 — George, Great-Grandfather, Dad & Magda

1960 — Dad's first birthday

1963 August 30th — Waiting to fly to Dhaka

1963 — The family

1964 — Near Dhaka after touring India in my dad's Citroen 2CV

1964 — First day of school in Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)

WOLFF'S MOTHER'S SIDE

WOLFF'S TIMELINE

1
TSS CAMITO

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EAST PAKISTAN RIOTS

TSS Camito was a passenger-carrying banana boat of the Fyffes Line. At 8501.73 tons gross, 3878.90 tons nett,[1] 448 feet long[2] and with a cruising speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).[1] She was the second ship to bear the name.

The 1964 East Pakistan Riots refer to the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan in the wake of an alleged theft of what was believed to be the Prophet's hair from the Hazratbal shrine in Jammu and Kashmir in India. The salient feature of the pogroms was its urban nature and selective targeting of Bengali Hindu owned industries and merchant establishments in the capital city of Dhaka. This resulted in unending waves of Bengali Hindu refugees in neighbouring West Bengal. The refugee rehabilitation became a national problem in India, and hundreds of refugees were resettled in Dandakaranya region of Odisha & Madhya Pradesh (now in Chhattisgarh).

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AVON LADIES

An expert travelling salesman, Mr McConnell used vials of perfume to entice his female customers to open their doors and pocketbooks to him and his books. When the perfume was a bigger hit than the books he was peddling, Mr McConnell changed his course.

With the assistance of one of his employees, a Mrs Albee, Mr McConnell sold perfumes to eager ladies under the name California Perfume Company. Knowing that housewives would trust other ladies more than men, Mrs Albee enlisted women as the sales force.

The concept worked: Avon ladies were the first conglomeration of American women to be financially independent with a respectable profession. They might not have had the right to vote, but they could bring cosmetics and household goods to the living room. Now that’s progress!

UPDATE: NEW FOCUS

At first i wanted to look into my family history and reconnect with family members I haven't spoken to in ages. However I have decided to not do this as it feels to draining and doesn't feel right, as I feel like I am expecting something from my distant family, which I haven't talked to in over 10 years, which feels wrong.

My dad kindly summed up his timeline and family tree for me, from which I found out things I didn't know about. This was quite a lot to take in as he never told me any of it before. I really enjoyed reading it all, it was also very overwhelming as it felt so unknown to me.

I have decided to focus on the silence within the family, the connections that have been lost and how to position myself within this silence and find comfort in not knowing. A lot of times there is reasoning to why people no longer speak or connect, I am choosing to learn as much as I can (for my own self), but to focus my process on being a third culture kid and the feeling attached to it. I will be having conversations with other third-culture kids that I know and am close to, to see what their feeling is towards it. I would in particular like to talk to my siblings who seem to have a different relationship to being a third-culture kid than myself.

QUESTIONS I'M ASKING MYSELF??????????

LOOKING AT SENSE OF BELONGING THROUGH SELF-NAVIGATION.

- How much information do I WANT to know about my family and how much SHOULD I know?
- Is there a way to feel comfort in not belonging?
- Should relationships be healed/made? Is it enough to only have a close family? (siblings/parents)
- Why do we long to belong to something? Can I get this through something else?
- Explore silence/disconnect and the feeling that comes with this?

CLASS WEEK 40

MY MOTHER'S FAMILY TREE TO FOLLOW....

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WEEK 41

This week we talked about the different ways that we could design our publication. We noticed that we have different ways of imagining ways of archiving and decided to embrace the different ways/opinions on presentation.

Where as Carolina, Hanna and I will focus on a specific form to present our archive, Alex, Soyeon, Victoria and Myriam will explore other ways. We will tie the forms together by having similarities in the typography used for our manifestos which will each be visible on our garments.

FAMILY TREE / HISTORY

ROSS FAMILY (MOTHER'S SIDE)

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There has been a big rupture in our family, that came from past history which caused a disconnect in our family relationships. I would consider my family being my mother, siblings and father.
My grandmother makes an effort to work on a relationship with me, however I find it hard to communicate with her as she has caused a lot of grief to my mother, who is one of the closest people I have in my life.

Most of my cousins I haven't seen in more than 5 years and my cousin Si-Ra (other side of the family) I haven't seen since I was around 8 years old (16 years ago aprox.)

For me this disconnect doesn't affect me too much, however I feel like I should work towards building relationships with my cousins, as the feud going on between our parents shouldn't stop us from trying to form bonds.

My mother has always wanted a big family, which is why it makes me sad that hers does not provide her with this support and joy.

NAVIGATING RUPTURES

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"Your great grandfather is the most handsome one! William. He was a doctor, played rugby for Ireland, came from Belfast to Millom."
- Kelly, my aunt

TEXTING DAD

What nationality do you identify with? And what did George (my grandfather) identify with?

ME

WOLFF

Always identify as Guyanese first and foremost!

Also thought of myself as British most of my life, but ever since Brexit and the Windrush scandal, I feel less and less of an islander! Now that I will be getting my Luxembourg nationality soon, I may even give up my British status.

My dad was Guyanese, through and through. He never had British status, but was very comfortable dealing with all nationalities.

Do you have a guyanese passport?
Do you still have rights in the UK?

Who are the Windrush generation?
The ‘Windrush’ generation are those who arrived in the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1973. Many took up jobs in the nascent NHS and other sectors affected by Britain’s post-war labour shortage. The name ‘Windrush’ derives from the ‘HMT Empire Windrush’ ship which brought one of the first large groups of Caribbean people to the UK in 1948. As the Caribbean was, at the time, a part of the British commonwealth, those who arrived were automatically British subjects and free to permanently live and work in the UK.

What is the Windrush scandal?
The Windrush scandal began to surface in 2017 after it emerged that hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, many of whom were from the ‘Windrush’ generation, had been wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights. Coverage of these individuals’ stories began to break in several newspapers, and Caribbean leaders took the issue up with then-prime minister, Theresa May.

There was widespread shock and outrage at the fact that so many Black Britons had had their lives devastated by Britain’s deeply flawed and discriminatory immigration system.

WINDRUSH SCANDAL 

My mum had a British passport (not sure if she also had a German one, though I doubt it because Germany does not allow dual nationality). But because of her life in Guyana, she was very much Guyanese as well (she was always praised for her German-Guyanese Pepper Pot, a traditional dish in Guyana, Pepper Pot that is).

I still have British status and a British passport, so have all the rights. I don't currently have a Guyanese passport, but I could get one at any time.

Was your dad part of the windrush generation?
Oh wow! Do you remember how long she lived in guyana?

I still have British status and a British passport, so have all the rights. I don't currently have a Guyanese passport, but I could get one at any time.

So will you have dual nationality with the luxembourgish one?

My dad wasn't part of the Windrush generation, but his 2 brothers who settled in the Midlands (Leicester & Hinckley) were mostly part of that program.
Magda lived in Guyana during the times I mentioned in my original bio and continued living in Guyana until she died in 2004.
I might give up my British nationality, but I need to think that over a bit more (there are some advantages of holding on to the UK passport).

Yes especially if you can have both, whats the reason you want to give it up?

I would give it up on principle ... also called 'Shooting Oneself In The Foot'!!!

DAD'S OLD GUYANESE PASSPORT

PROCESS

LOOKING UP MY FAMILY

GRANDFATHER GEORGE HENRY, GUYANESE ARCHITECT

GREAT-GRANDFATHER, WILLIAM ROSS, RUGBY PLAYER FOR IRELAND

DESIGNED BY GEORGE

PART 2 - EMILIO

- personal = political
- who am I -> what are my privileges -> look at me!
- Film crew
- Process is 90% of the work
- feedback
- depth

HOW DO I WANT TO CONTINUE?

TOPIC INTERESTS

- Ideal identity (based on 'The formation of identity: The importance of Ideals'):
-> ideal as in what the person wants to achieve in the future, a kind of future self
-> not so much of a focus on the history of my identity, but acknowledging it

- Exploring different ways of belonging:
-> not necessarily through research on the past but exploration and fun
-> is it possible to create belonging & share it with others
-> create it with others

- Multi-layered identities
-> identities are multi-layered and complex
-> they are influenced by the way we are raised and the people we surround ourselves with
-> fusing together perceptions of identity (fictional story) -> could be a writing piece with visuals, performance

- Where is my home?
-> all these constructed feelings of home (shop home setups)
-> invading public spaces and making them our homes

VISUAL INSPO

1. Creating a fictional character

In 'The Father' they follow the story of someones fathers experience with dementia. What I really liked about the way they shot it, is that they would interchange the actors to visualise the feeling of confusion. I really liked how this made the viewer unsure of what they were seeing.

This could be an interesting way to show different interpretations and perspectives of the topics.

2. Reverse storyline

In 'The Father' they follow the story of someones fathers experience with dementia. What I really liked about the way they shot it, is that they would interchange the actors to visualise the feeling of confusion. I really liked how this made the viewer unsure of what they were seeing.

This could be an interesting way to show different interpretations and perspectives of the topics.

3. Be apart of something we can't control

-> embrace not being in control of something
-> document an object/something we care about that changes over time

Identities are always in flux, we are growing up influenced by the people around us, the system we live in, the ideals we have

THE CHARACTER

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

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