For week five of Charettes, we looked over everyone's ideas. I had an unfortunate week, and totally forgot about the short paper we were supposed to write! (Thankfully, my lovely teacher let me whip it up over lunch!) Then we analyzed some works of artist Yinka Shonibare MBE. (He has some really cool, if strange, work. Check him out.)
After lunch, we worked on the project, doing mock-ups. I got instructed to go on and start with my final version, because I'm doing a rather lot. I'm exploring 'isolation,' 'rootlessness,' and 'wandering'. Stay tuned for updates on that, here and over at my artblog.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Women Without Men: Discovering Self
Women Without Men is an independent film by Iranian filmmaker Shirin Neshat. It explores the personal journeys of four Iranian women in 1953. Done in a ‘magical realism’ style, the film juxtaposes the women’s personal journeys against the coup d’état of 1953, in which the democratic government of Iran was overthrown by the United States and Great Britain. Magical realism is defined as a style of art or literature which ‘involves the fusion of the real and the fantastic’ (Moore).
Shirin Neshat is widely known for her work, which explores gender relations and Islam, usually in Iran. She gained prominence for her photo series Women of Allah, which depicted women in veils carrying guns, with Islamic poetry painted across their skin. She followed that with a trilogy of films, done with fellow Iranian artist/filmmaker Shoja Azari, which explored women and Islam. These films were Turbulent (1998), Rapture (1999), and Fervor (2000). She explored her personal feelings on her dual-cultured life in the films Rebellious Silence and Soliloquy (1999).
Shirin Neshat appears to be fond of using a split-screen technique in her films. In Rebellious Silence and Soliloquy, she projects images of herself in Iran on one screen and images of herself in America on the other. In Turbulent and Rapture, the split screen is used in another way; one screen has only male actors, and the other has only female actors. This is to reflect the way men and women are physically separated almost all the time in Islam. In Turbulent, Neshat explored singing as a metaphor for freedom. She made this film as a response to an Iranian ban on women singing.
In her work, Shirin Neshat portrays Iranian women. She shows their humanity, and how their culture ignores that its women are people, too. In her films and photography, we get a glimpse into the world of Muslim Iranian women; to many Westerners, this is a totally new experience. Iran is unwelcoming to Western people, because of cultural and religious differences. Many Americans, myself included, have little to no knowledge of Iran and Iranian culture. Before seeing Women Without Men, all I knew of Iran was that it was a Muslim country. I suspected that it was a theocracy, or a dictatorship. That was the extent of my knowledge of Iran.
In Women Without Men, Shirin Neshat says she tried to remind people of the Iran before the Islamic Revolution. She strives to have Americans see that our government helped make Iran what it is today, by collaborating with Britain to overthrow Iran’s government in 1953. With Women Without Men, Neshat portrays the personal journeys of several women; we see their quests to break free from the control of men and find themselves. This is a story that many women can relate to, as women as a whole have been struggling to break free of male control, to varying degrees of success.
The characters of Women Without Men break free of perceptions of Islamic women. Fakhri leaves her husband, and Munis is a political activist. Most people do not think Iranian women would ever do things like this. In the women of this film, one can see where Neshat may have put her own feelings into this film. The women belong neither to one world nor the other, and this may reflect Neshat's own feelings toward her bi-culturalism.
This movie has an interesting title: Women Without Men. This is a film about self-discovery and freedom. All the women in the film find freedom after escaping from men. The only positive male character is the nameless gardener. In being ‘without men,’ these women find their ‘self’. Without negative males in their lives, the women are free to do the things they could not do before; Munis can finally be a political activist, Zarin can choose what she does, Faezeh can choose if she will marry, and Fakhri can run her life as she chooses.
This film relates to our class, because all four of these women are struggling to pull away from what they are expected to be, and they each try to find their ‘self’. In her TED speech, Thandie Newton says that we are not born with a ‘self,’ but it is created as we grow older. I have to disagree. I think
we are all born with a true ‘self,’ but we do not always let it show. Indeed, sometimes we do not even know what our true ‘self’ is like; we suppress it in order to fit in and be liked. At some point in almost every person’s life, one must tear away the old, false ‘self’ to reveal what really lies underneath. Some people may never find that ‘true self’, and others may hide it away. In Women Without Men, each of the women ends up shedding that old life, that old ‘self’, and beginning anew.
The place you are born or the place you live can have a great effect on one’s ‘self’. If one is born in a Western country, like America, one has much more freedom to be and express one’s ‘self’. If a woman lives in a more oppressive country, like Iran, she has little to no freedom of ‘self’. A man might have more freedom of ‘self’, but a woman would not have that freedom. She would be confined by her culture into behaving a certain way, no matter if it goes against her nature.
There is definitely a power struggle in Neshat’s work. It goes beyond the very obvious political strife in Women Without Men, and into a much more personal power struggle. All of the women yearn for independence, for control over their futures, their bodies, their ‘self’. The men in the film desire power over women, and try to control them and tear them down. Munis’s brother attempts to force her to get married, and Fakhri’s husband emotionally abuses her to get what he wants. Zarin has no control what happens to her body until she runs away, and Faezeh has control of her body taken from her by force. The women strive to regain control over themselves in the film, and succeed. Munis becomes a political activist after (possibly) faking her death. Faezeh learns to move beyond the shame and horror of her rape. In death, Zarin moves beyond any other person’s control of her body.
Women Without Men is a very powerful, emotional film. It gives a rare look into the lives of four women in a now-barely-remembered time in Iranian history. Its overarching theme is one of self-discovery and freedom. Like Shirin Neshat’s other works, it explores the lives of women in Iran, and their relationships to their country, their religion, and men.
Shirin Neshat is widely known for her work, which explores gender relations and Islam, usually in Iran. She gained prominence for her photo series Women of Allah, which depicted women in veils carrying guns, with Islamic poetry painted across their skin. She followed that with a trilogy of films, done with fellow Iranian artist/filmmaker Shoja Azari, which explored women and Islam. These films were Turbulent (1998), Rapture (1999), and Fervor (2000). She explored her personal feelings on her dual-cultured life in the films Rebellious Silence and Soliloquy (1999).
Shirin Neshat appears to be fond of using a split-screen technique in her films. In Rebellious Silence and Soliloquy, she projects images of herself in Iran on one screen and images of herself in America on the other. In Turbulent and Rapture, the split screen is used in another way; one screen has only male actors, and the other has only female actors. This is to reflect the way men and women are physically separated almost all the time in Islam. In Turbulent, Neshat explored singing as a metaphor for freedom. She made this film as a response to an Iranian ban on women singing.
In her work, Shirin Neshat portrays Iranian women. She shows their humanity, and how their culture ignores that its women are people, too. In her films and photography, we get a glimpse into the world of Muslim Iranian women; to many Westerners, this is a totally new experience. Iran is unwelcoming to Western people, because of cultural and religious differences. Many Americans, myself included, have little to no knowledge of Iran and Iranian culture. Before seeing Women Without Men, all I knew of Iran was that it was a Muslim country. I suspected that it was a theocracy, or a dictatorship. That was the extent of my knowledge of Iran.
In Women Without Men, Shirin Neshat says she tried to remind people of the Iran before the Islamic Revolution. She strives to have Americans see that our government helped make Iran what it is today, by collaborating with Britain to overthrow Iran’s government in 1953. With Women Without Men, Neshat portrays the personal journeys of several women; we see their quests to break free from the control of men and find themselves. This is a story that many women can relate to, as women as a whole have been struggling to break free of male control, to varying degrees of success.
The characters of Women Without Men break free of perceptions of Islamic women. Fakhri leaves her husband, and Munis is a political activist. Most people do not think Iranian women would ever do things like this. In the women of this film, one can see where Neshat may have put her own feelings into this film. The women belong neither to one world nor the other, and this may reflect Neshat's own feelings toward her bi-culturalism.
This movie has an interesting title: Women Without Men. This is a film about self-discovery and freedom. All the women in the film find freedom after escaping from men. The only positive male character is the nameless gardener. In being ‘without men,’ these women find their ‘self’. Without negative males in their lives, the women are free to do the things they could not do before; Munis can finally be a political activist, Zarin can choose what she does, Faezeh can choose if she will marry, and Fakhri can run her life as she chooses.
This film relates to our class, because all four of these women are struggling to pull away from what they are expected to be, and they each try to find their ‘self’. In her TED speech, Thandie Newton says that we are not born with a ‘self,’ but it is created as we grow older. I have to disagree. I think
we are all born with a true ‘self,’ but we do not always let it show. Indeed, sometimes we do not even know what our true ‘self’ is like; we suppress it in order to fit in and be liked. At some point in almost every person’s life, one must tear away the old, false ‘self’ to reveal what really lies underneath. Some people may never find that ‘true self’, and others may hide it away. In Women Without Men, each of the women ends up shedding that old life, that old ‘self’, and beginning anew.
The place you are born or the place you live can have a great effect on one’s ‘self’. If one is born in a Western country, like America, one has much more freedom to be and express one’s ‘self’. If a woman lives in a more oppressive country, like Iran, she has little to no freedom of ‘self’. A man might have more freedom of ‘self’, but a woman would not have that freedom. She would be confined by her culture into behaving a certain way, no matter if it goes against her nature.
There is definitely a power struggle in Neshat’s work. It goes beyond the very obvious political strife in Women Without Men, and into a much more personal power struggle. All of the women yearn for independence, for control over their futures, their bodies, their ‘self’. The men in the film desire power over women, and try to control them and tear them down. Munis’s brother attempts to force her to get married, and Fakhri’s husband emotionally abuses her to get what he wants. Zarin has no control what happens to her body until she runs away, and Faezeh has control of her body taken from her by force. The women strive to regain control over themselves in the film, and succeed. Munis becomes a political activist after (possibly) faking her death. Faezeh learns to move beyond the shame and horror of her rape. In death, Zarin moves beyond any other person’s control of her body.
Women Without Men is a very powerful, emotional film. It gives a rare look into the lives of four women in a now-barely-remembered time in Iranian history. Its overarching theme is one of self-discovery and freedom. Like Shirin Neshat’s other works, it explores the lives of women in Iran, and their relationships to their country, their religion, and men.
Charettes Documentation
Okay, lovelies. It seems there was one part of my Charettes class I forgot about - a log! Not just of projects, no, but of the whole class! So that's what's going to happen here!
Alright, I've already done weeks one and two, because that was the lovely skull thing. Week Three! On week 3 of class, I do believe we watched Shirin Neshat's lovely, lovely film Women Without Men. Seriously, it's a good film. It's about four women trying to gain freedom and find themselves in Iran, which happens to be undergoing a political crisis, in 1953. It sound boring, but it isn't. I wrote a whole paper on it. And that brings me to the next bit, week four!
For week four, we had to write an essay about Women Without Men. Three people presented papers, Brandi, Sterling, and I. Their essays were just fabulous, even if Sterling read really really fast sometimes and I couldn't understand him. Brandi's essay delved into the relationships between 'self' and 'other' in the film, and Sterling's essay summed the story up nicely, while providing analysis. My essay was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I'll post it as a separate update, because it's rather long.
For the rest of class on Wednesday, Week Four, we brainstormed ideas for our final projects. Everyone had smashing ideas, and I can't wait to see them finished! My idea is to do something exploring my sense of rootlessness. I moved around a lot when I was a kid, so I don't really feel like I'm 'from' anywhere. I spent nine years in Virginia, where I was born. Then my family moved to Tennessee, where I lived for another nine years. Now I'm in Ohio for school, and I just don't know where I'm from. I never really fit in in Tennessee, because we moved to a teeny weeny little town where everyone knew everyone and was related to everyone. I mostly grew up in Tennessee, but I don't really feel like I belong there. So, that's what my project is going to be about! Stay tuned for updates and progress of it. Subscribe via e-mail to get the fastest updates!
Alright, I've already done weeks one and two, because that was the lovely skull thing. Week Three! On week 3 of class, I do believe we watched Shirin Neshat's lovely, lovely film Women Without Men. Seriously, it's a good film. It's about four women trying to gain freedom and find themselves in Iran, which happens to be undergoing a political crisis, in 1953. It sound boring, but it isn't. I wrote a whole paper on it. And that brings me to the next bit, week four!
For week four, we had to write an essay about Women Without Men. Three people presented papers, Brandi, Sterling, and I. Their essays were just fabulous, even if Sterling read really really fast sometimes and I couldn't understand him. Brandi's essay delved into the relationships between 'self' and 'other' in the film, and Sterling's essay summed the story up nicely, while providing analysis. My essay was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I'll post it as a separate update, because it's rather long.
For the rest of class on Wednesday, Week Four, we brainstormed ideas for our final projects. Everyone had smashing ideas, and I can't wait to see them finished! My idea is to do something exploring my sense of rootlessness. I moved around a lot when I was a kid, so I don't really feel like I'm 'from' anywhere. I spent nine years in Virginia, where I was born. Then my family moved to Tennessee, where I lived for another nine years. Now I'm in Ohio for school, and I just don't know where I'm from. I never really fit in in Tennessee, because we moved to a teeny weeny little town where everyone knew everyone and was related to everyone. I mostly grew up in Tennessee, but I don't really feel like I belong there. So, that's what my project is going to be about! Stay tuned for updates and progress of it. Subscribe via e-mail to get the fastest updates!
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Project One
Or, Art Students and the Quest for the Index-Card Skull.
This is Jessica Childress, and here is my story of Project One.
Our first Charettes project was about defining the Self and the Other. (Fitting, since this class segment is called Charettes: Self and Other Voices.) We had index cards with words in them, describing how we are NOT like our teacher. The project was to come up with a design that showed how we ARE like our teacher.
My group consisted of four people, myself (Jess), Nicole, Brandi, and James. Nicole texted us her idea for the design, and we all agreed that it was the best option. Her idea was to have a skull made of index cards. The top of the skull would be split open, symbolizing open-mindedness. The colored ribbons we were given would be coming out of the open skull, to connect to the ways we are similar. More ribbon would come out of the mouth, and it would connect to ways we were different.
We met up on Labor Day at my dorm to work on the project. We settled in to work, taping the index cards together and coming up with ideas for how we were similar. We thought we'd lost our 'differences' cards, so I spent a good chunk of time thinking of ways were different again. It turns out that we hadn't lost them, only forgotten where they'd been put! Thank goodness! Nicole drew and cut out the skull, and then Brandi wrote our 'similarities' on the cards inside the skull. James helped me think of the differences cards again. Nicole also did all of the documenting, taking pictures and video.
After a few hours, we had everything mostly done. We reasoned that the ribbons would just go on during the final presentation.
Cut to class on Wednesday, and we find out that we have to connect our design to everyone else's!
Clearly, some emergency thinking was needed. We decided to have my ribbon (turquoise) connect
our design to our 'differences' note cards, because we all have ways in which we are different from
each other (also, my ribbon was too short to do anything else!). The rest of the ribbon would be divided, with half coming out of the top and half coming out of the mouth. Two ribbons, one from the head and one from the mouth, would each connect to the other three groups. The head-ribbon would connect to similarities both our groups had, and the mouth-ribbon would connect to the differences.
Well, we did that, and the result was pretty nifty. We'd arranged our 'differences' cards outside the skull, because 'different' means 'other', and 'other' exists outside of us. Our critique went over pretty well.
Now to answer some of the questions on the assignment sheet! These are ones I don't think I touched on in the post above.
My understanding of this project was that we were to examine what marked us as being 'not Kidist' and what, in ourselves, was 'like Kidist'. I believe the point of this project was to help us see that, while there may be things about us that are different, there are things that bind us all together as well.
We solved this by having our design be one thing that all humans have: a skull. All the things that make us similar, such as having bones, breathing, etc., were listed inside the skull. I suggested having all of the ribbons braid together, after going and touching the differences, and ending at a card that read 'HUMAN'. However, that was not possible due to having to connect all the designs. We were going to have each ribbon only represent one person, and to lead to cards that we individually identified with. Instead, we had the ribbons connect to the other groups represent us as a whole.
My analysis of this project is that it was somewhat difficult. It's very hard to kind of get into what makes us individually different and similar. Once we had that done, though, the rest of our ideas just fell into place. After we got the basic design and 'differences/similarities' cards, other design elements just seemed obvious.
I must admit, there was not a lot of communication between groups. Everyone was up in each other's way, and talking over each other. Communication is definitely something we have to work on.
I think this project did help me with the notion of 'self and other voices'. I had to examine my 'self' to see in what ways it connected to the 'other'. This project really helped with that, and now I ink it's just a little bit easier to connect to other people.
This is Jessica Childress, signing off.
This is Jessica Childress, and here is my story of Project One.
Our first Charettes project was about defining the Self and the Other. (Fitting, since this class segment is called Charettes: Self and Other Voices.) We had index cards with words in them, describing how we are NOT like our teacher. The project was to come up with a design that showed how we ARE like our teacher.
My group consisted of four people, myself (Jess), Nicole, Brandi, and James. Nicole texted us her idea for the design, and we all agreed that it was the best option. Her idea was to have a skull made of index cards. The top of the skull would be split open, symbolizing open-mindedness. The colored ribbons we were given would be coming out of the open skull, to connect to the ways we are similar. More ribbon would come out of the mouth, and it would connect to ways we were different.
We met up on Labor Day at my dorm to work on the project. We settled in to work, taping the index cards together and coming up with ideas for how we were similar. We thought we'd lost our 'differences' cards, so I spent a good chunk of time thinking of ways were different again. It turns out that we hadn't lost them, only forgotten where they'd been put! Thank goodness! Nicole drew and cut out the skull, and then Brandi wrote our 'similarities' on the cards inside the skull. James helped me think of the differences cards again. Nicole also did all of the documenting, taking pictures and video.
After a few hours, we had everything mostly done. We reasoned that the ribbons would just go on during the final presentation.
Cut to class on Wednesday, and we find out that we have to connect our design to everyone else's!
Clearly, some emergency thinking was needed. We decided to have my ribbon (turquoise) connect
our design to our 'differences' note cards, because we all have ways in which we are different from
each other (also, my ribbon was too short to do anything else!). The rest of the ribbon would be divided, with half coming out of the top and half coming out of the mouth. Two ribbons, one from the head and one from the mouth, would each connect to the other three groups. The head-ribbon would connect to similarities both our groups had, and the mouth-ribbon would connect to the differences.
Well, we did that, and the result was pretty nifty. We'd arranged our 'differences' cards outside the skull, because 'different' means 'other', and 'other' exists outside of us. Our critique went over pretty well.
Now to answer some of the questions on the assignment sheet! These are ones I don't think I touched on in the post above.
My understanding of this project was that we were to examine what marked us as being 'not Kidist' and what, in ourselves, was 'like Kidist'. I believe the point of this project was to help us see that, while there may be things about us that are different, there are things that bind us all together as well.
We solved this by having our design be one thing that all humans have: a skull. All the things that make us similar, such as having bones, breathing, etc., were listed inside the skull. I suggested having all of the ribbons braid together, after going and touching the differences, and ending at a card that read 'HUMAN'. However, that was not possible due to having to connect all the designs. We were going to have each ribbon only represent one person, and to lead to cards that we individually identified with. Instead, we had the ribbons connect to the other groups represent us as a whole.
My analysis of this project is that it was somewhat difficult. It's very hard to kind of get into what makes us individually different and similar. Once we had that done, though, the rest of our ideas just fell into place. After we got the basic design and 'differences/similarities' cards, other design elements just seemed obvious.
I must admit, there was not a lot of communication between groups. Everyone was up in each other's way, and talking over each other. Communication is definitely something we have to work on.
I think this project did help me with the notion of 'self and other voices'. I had to examine my 'self' to see in what ways it connected to the 'other'. This project really helped with that, and now I ink it's just a little bit easier to connect to other people.
This is Jessica Childress, signing off.
Cha-what?
Charettes, that's what! Wikipedia (not the most reliable, I know, but my dictionary didn't recognize that it's a word!) defines charrette, often Anglicized to charette, as "A method of organizing thoughts...into a structured medium that is unrestricted and conducive to the creativity and the development of myriad scenarios".
Well, I have a Charettes class right now, and that is pretty much what it's about. This is going to be a blog for the documentation required in my class.
Well, I have a Charettes class right now, and that is pretty much what it's about. This is going to be a blog for the documentation required in my class.
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