12 posts tagged “university of san francisco”
PROJECT 3: WRESTLING WITH THE PAST, DEALING WITH THE FUTURE
IN-CLASS: M 4/9, 4/16, M 4/23, 4/30, 5/7
CRIT/DUE: W 5/9
Post-colonialism (also known as post-colonial theory) refers to a set of theories in philosophy, film and literature that grapple with the legacy of colonial rule. As a literary theory or critical approach it deals with literature produced in countries that were once, or are now, colonies of other countries. It may also deal with literature written in or by citizens of colonizing countries that takes colonies or their peoples as its subject matter. Postcolonial theory became part of the critical toolbox in the 1970s, and many practitioners take Edward Said's book Orientalism to be the theory's founding work. Post-colonialism deals with many issues for societies that have undergone colonialism: the dilemmas of developing a national identity in the wake of colonial rule; the ways in which writers from colonized countries attempt to articulate and even celebrate their cultural identities and reclaim them from the colonizers; the ways knowledge of colonized people have served the interests of colonizers, and how knowledge of subordinate people is produced and used; and the ways in which the literature of the colonial powers is used to justify colonialism through the perpetuation of images of the colonized as inferior.
Colonized peoples responded to the colonial legacy by writing back to the center. This came about as indigenous peoples began to write their own histories, their own legacy, using the colonizers' language (usually English) for their own purposes. As post-colonialist theory has impacted communities of indigenous peoples it has produced a process of indigenous decolonization.As suggested by its name, postcolonialism is about dealing with the legacy of colonialism. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly the most prominent form this has taken to date has been in the cultural realm, especially with respect to identity politics and literary studies. Thus, the most common way the term has been used is in reference to a genre of writing and cultural politics, usually by the authors from the countries which were previously colonised. All postcolonialist theorists admit that colonialism continues to affect the former colonies after political independence.
This final project should demonstrate the culmination of what you have learned this semester in Worlds In Collision. In Project 3, I would like you to explicitly consider Filipino/Filipino-American history, as well as post-colonialism, transnationalism, and the creative strategies and philosophies of the artists in Overmapped, the artists you did your midterm papers on, as well as artists Ariel Erestingcol, Rosanna Brillantes, Eliza Barrios, Mike Arcega, and Lordy Rodriguez. How can creative production, your creative production, be a way of responding to history, “answering back”, answering/asking more questions, dealing with both the personal and political, and filling in the gaps?
We’ll discuss this project a bit in class, but you are expected to do research, and learn more about the terms and artists. Don’t feel any pressure to answer explicitly or didactically to all of the above considerations, but do be prepared to indicate how those ideas or influences have affected your thinking and art-making as an artist yourself.
Go back through the texts you’ve read for Wednesday’s section, review work by the artists online. It helps.
On Monday April 16, please be ready to work. Do not come empty-handed, or empty-idea’d. Email me prior to the 16th if you are struggling. Bring all the supplies you will need to work with to class for each remaining session. Consider the wide range of materials and media you’ve now seen: maybe you’ll work with traditional materials, maybe with unconventional found materials, with digital media, or any number of other things. Please choose materials/media that you know to be significant or relevant to your project. Consider some of the dialogue we had about work and materials during critiques for Projects 1 and 2.
This project has a total of 13 in-class hours, and an expectation of at least 7-8 outside-class hours. You are welcome to work more than this, of course.
Criteria for success on Project 3:
∑ Personal investment in theme and message
∑ Emotional/intellectual engagement with the subject/image
∑ Materials/media/execution appropriate to your project
∑ 4-5 weeks of effort and investment (20-21 hours minimum)
∑ complex investment in idea, theme and execution
∑ written reflection/artist statement
Clarification of some criteria:
Engagement and Investment:
Care and criticality are words to keep in mind, as a maker and a viewer. How do you care about this, and then how might you make us care, as well? What is the evidence of your critical/conceptual intent? Have you chosen an image/istory/theme that compels you? Have you genuinely engaged with the image? How is this evident in your completed work?
Materials/execution:
It doesn’t matter what style or materials you work with. What you choose to work with should reflect an advanced level of criticality and investment, however.To reiterate from previous projects, this is not about traditional technical skill. It is definitely about investigation, experimentation, and follow-through. Is the work complete, and as well-made as possible? Does it feel finished, and resolved? Have you challenged yourself to move beyond your personal comfort zone/skill-set, and take new risks?
Written Reflection:
Since this project is a bit more ambitious, it would be good to expand your writing a bit more. Your work may have heavy, or unfamiliar content, which a well-written reflection can accommodate. This writing still doesn’t have to be straightforward academic analysis. It can be poetry, short fiction, diaristic: whatever seems appropriate. It should supplement, but not supercede, your artwork. 2 pages, typed and double-spaced, preferably.
Charles Daulo
Pause for a moment and think about what I’m trying to say,
Listen to the words between the words that lie deep in the innermost of your mind and come to find
The story of a young boy who found a dollar bill and the red pill
And reality that it came with…
Sitting in the midst of my adolescences where I found and lost my innocence.
Pacing at a speed to which life blurs and images can no longer be seen.
Then stop.
Restart.
Reboot.
Then shoot out words to describe the words to make phrase upon tiny frays of cloth that has stuck to my body.
Omit any feelings that may cause pain and replace it with a checkbook.
Invoke the past in the future then revoke the maternal ideal with a paternal deal that makes my reality surreal.
I’ve done my best thinking while sitting
On the can taking a shit
I’ve done my best to never quit
No thanks to you, who found the quality of life with a dollar bill only to instill the notion that anything can be bought.
You, me and us, for days we fought
Discovering that I was for sale, upon a land that was cold and pale
Thank you, my childhood, forever impaled
By what you taught dear mother
There are no vacancies here because your love is like a vacant sea.
Dear child you are young and do not know about life. But it was life that taught me all that I needed to know.
Now it’s too late, I’ve grown up to understand, tears have fallen like a cold bitter storm of hale
Life taught me…
I am not for sale!
Research paper: 4-6 pages long, typed, double-spaced. Topics will be given in class, and may include biographical research and critical analysis of works in an artist’s oeuvre, or looking at a chronological period in Filipino American history and cultural production. This will be 15% of your overall grade for the course.
DUE: MARCH 28, 2007
Artists re-present the culture from which their identity has been constructed- their race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, the complex combination of forces that have shaped the way they see the world. And they help us to understand, through images and language, the particularity of an individual psyche as it intersects with that of the collective. -Carol Becker
As we have discussed in class, the midterm paper will be two (2) artist biographies each 2-3 pages in length. Please discuss the artist’s childhood and upbringing, educational experience, some influential episodes in their lives as it pertains to his or her own art making process. Ask questions such as “how did you become an artist?”, “how does your identity inform your art?” “could you describe your process of artmaking?” etc. You may include a section of visual analysis of one or two pieces that describes the artist work.
Please use as much primary materials as possible. The Gleeson Library has video interviews of many artists. Also use art reviews, newspaper articles, and even conduct an interview with the artist. Make sure you cite each of your sources and give appropriate credit.
These papers will be used as text panels in the upcoming exhibition “Overmapped: A Cartography of Filipino Visual Arts” at the SOMA Arts Main Gallery in San Francisco, CA.
IN-CLASS: M 2/26, M 3/05, 3/19
CRIT/DUE: M 3/26
“What are the particular details within each of our lives that can be scrutinized and altered to help bring about change? How do we redefine difference for all women/people? It is not our differences which separate…, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of those differences.”
-Audre Lorde, Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference“If writing (art-making) is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic. I suppose I could dispense with the last four if I were not so deadly serious about fidelity to the milieu out of which I write and in which my ancestors lived.”
“…the crucial distinction for me is not the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and truth.”
-Toni Morrison, The Site of Memory
Project 2 is to be autobiographical, but... not necessarily factual. In reflecting on the course readings by Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison, which both speak, in different ways, about difference and the necessity of stories being told or honored, you are to create a piece of art that speaks to your own history, whether you’re Filipino-American or not. Your connection to and interest in Filipino-American history is implicit, by virtue of your presence in this course. This project is about is several things:
1. investigating your backgrounds/families/histories visually
2. understanding the depth and importance of these stories
3. connecting this to the stories of others.
In a way, this project builds on your previous one (“So much of Filipino-American history is buried, or invisible. Making visual work returns events to visibility”), but from the inside-out. In Project 2, I would like you to explicitly consider the texts by Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison, and the work, creative strategies and philosophies of artists Johanna Poethig and Carlos Villa.
It will likely feel a little overwhelming initially, trying to sift through ideas and memories, and figure out what to do with them. Go back through the Lorde and Morrison texts, review work by Poethig and Villa online. Your story does not have to be some kind of epic, “Titanic”-style spectacular: it can be something intimate, even mundane. Consider that the stories Morrison reclaims are not directly autobiographical, but they are stories that intertwine with her family’s story, and that she connects to in this manner. What you make work about must simply be something from your personal history that you feel connected to enough to want to re-investigate and re-tell creatively.
On Monday March 5th, please be ready to crank on this project. Bring all the supplies you will need to work with to class. Consider the wide range of materials and media you have now seen: maybe you’ll work with traditional materials, maybe with unconventional found materials, with digital media, or any number of other things. I will not dictate what you should work with, I only ask that you choose materials that you know to be significant or relevant to your project. Consider some of the dialogue we had about work during critiques for Project 1.
This project has a total of 7 in-class hours, and an expectation of at least 5-6 outside-class hours. You are welcome to work more than this, of course.
Criteria for success on Project 2:
- Personal investment in theme and message
- Emotional/intellectual engagement with the subject/image
- Materials/media/execution appropriate to your project
- 3-4 weeks of effort and investment (12-13 hours minimum)
- complex investment in idea, theme and execution
- written reflection/artist statement
Clarification of some criteria:
Engagement and Investment:
“Care” is a word to keep in mind, as a maker and a viewer. How do you care about this, and then how might you make us care, as well? Have you chosen an image/istory/theme that compels you? Have you genuinely engaged with the image? How is this evident in your completed work?
Materials/execution:
It doesn’t matter what style or materials you work with. What you choose to work with will reflect your investment. It may mean you need to work with digital video, it may mean you need to work with feathers and pigs’ blood.
To reiterate from Project 1, this is not about traditional technical skill. It’s about curiosity, investigation, and follow-through. Have you challenged yourself to move beyond your personal comfort zone/skill-set, and take new risks?
Written Reflection:
Some realizations simply won’t come to you until well after you’ve finished a piece, but it’s important to reflect on what you’ve made in some conscious way. In this particular project, this may be where you can express more directly what you are expressing elliptically with your art. This writing does not have to be straightforward academic analysis. It can be poetry, short fiction, diaristic: whatever seems appropriate. How you choose to write about your work is up to you: it should supplement, but not supercede, your artwork. 1-2 pages, typed and double-spaced, preferably.
Eliza Doeschl
I drew a Filipina lady in the traditional Filipino costume, the
Maria Clara dress. I enjoy drawing, however for me, the hardest aspect
of it is drawing a person, especially the facial features and the
expression of the person. It was very challenging to draw this person
and the intricate details of the dress. I thought that these details
would be easy to draw since it was just a simple pattern of only a
couple colors. However as I started drawing the details of her dress,
the flowery designs, the feathery bottom of her dress, the highlights of
the light hitting her dress, and the folding of her dress really
challenged me.
This Filipina lady represents me, a mestiza, because I am one. My
mother is Filipina and my father is German. She is wearing a reddish,
orange, pink dress, a combination of my favorite colors. Her dress is
also styled after one Imelda Marcus’ many gowns. She stands alone
against a black background, standing out from the crowd, a strong
independent woman, yet still feminine. She is sophisticated in all her
beauty and poised, just like the independent woman to growing up to be a
strong independent woman.
Miki Downes
Project 1: Telling/Re-Telling
My project is based largely off of what I learned from one of the first readings we were assigned. The article introduced me to a Filipino history much of which was independent of the history I was familiar with. It gave an overview of the Philippines in regards to geography, colonization and American immigration from the Philippines.
Storytelling was the overall theme of my project. Since this was the introductory project, I felt it was appropriate to illustrate the history I had been introduced to. My idea was to create a book symbolic of both my overall theme and the title of the project Telling/Re-Telling.
The images I chose to incorporate in my project I see as a synthesis of people and place with storytelling. The images bring together the geography and environment with the people and their history. The images I used collaborated the depictions of the physical environment with maps, people and the text from the article that inspired my project.
Unlike most of the images I chose the text isn't independently as straightforward. I put this emphasis on the text because it was my inspiration for the project. I warped the images to symbolize how our education system has marginalized Filipino contribution in American history and the identity struggle of piecing together the fragments of a culture that colonization deteriorated.
Carlo Tagal-Lachenal
I tried to make this look like “the new Katipunan flag”, because I wanted to show how the Philippines has not yet escaped its own colonial mentality. Anything American is the best, they say, and to be Filipino is a liability. I feel this is not right, and that to take such a sacred image, that being the Katipunan flag, and turning it into a symbol of servitude would show how much we have forgotten about our own past. Did the Katipunan fight simply to have their following generations be servants under another flag? Are we respecting the sacrifices they made when we choose to support American this and American that over our own peoples’ works?
LaTisha Jones
Last year I did a project on Philippine Festivals. Since it took my interest, I thought I’d explore it a little deeper this time to draw one of the characters, a costume, or even a particular kind of food. Throughout my research I came across the Davao Festival. Since I hadn’t discovered about this festival before, I thought I should broaden my horizons and learn more about it. By clicking on the images this is when the Philippine Eagle caught my attention. I didn’t even know that such a creature existed in this country. Since I am fascinated by the country and nature itself, I thought this would be a great project to explore in depth.
The Philippine Eagle is one of the rarest, largest and most powerful birds in the world and belongs to the family Accipitride. This prey was first called the Monkey-eating Eagle in 1896, based on reports from Natives saying that it preyed only Monkeys. Recent studies also revealed that they also prey on other animals such as large snakes, monitor lizards, and large birds such as hornbills.
This rare bird can only be found in rainforests of four major Philippine islands-Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao. This is the reason why I chose to do my background as a “nature” look, adding green grass and trees and also twigs. This eagle is one of the world’s tallest eagles, and has the largest surface in its wings among all the species of eagles. Also, the life expectancy for the Philippine Eagle is around 30-60 years! Now that’s amazing. I would have never expected that. It is also known as the national bird of the Philippines, which has helped increase awareness of the bird and its plight.
Vince Esteves
Mentality
This piece means so much to me because I’ve seen this happen to so many people. Also, this piece works in the reverse direction. When most people leave the states to go back home, they get a sense of re-connection. Going back, or even visiting for the first time, is monumental in one’s identity as a fil-am. The boxes come and go through the sky everyday with a mentality that seems to change within 12-14 hours. This piece is enigmatic depending on how you look at it. There is no distinction whether the change is for the better of worse, but the main message is that the change exists.
Narciso Hilo
With my subject in mind, I searched the Internet for any information I could find that pertained to Lapu Lapu. Eventually I found an image of his sculpture in Lapu-Lapu City (formerly town of Opon) in Cebu and I thought it would be perfect for me to render onto paper.
I chose a red sheet of paper to begin my drawing as well as charcoal because I thought it would provide the shading I was hoping to obtain. As I finished drawing his head, shoulders, and chest, I had to decide if I wanted to complete the drawing on red paper or to change the color. After 5 minutes of pondering, I chose to change the colors and picked orange and turquoise for the completion of the project. Last, I knew that the top of Lapu Lapu’s shield would not fit on the red paper so I decided to put a white boarder around the entire drawing. I thought this was a good idea since it made all of the white shading in the drawing stand out. Last, I shaded in his loincloth with the brick-orange charcoal for contrast.
I successfully challenged my artistic abilities with this project because I never tried layering paper for a dramatic effect and I got more experience shading. I was also able to further my knowledge about the Philippine’s first national hero by researching him as my subject.
