Driving Question: How can we think critically to effectively inform citizens in a media manipulated world?

Summative Assessment: You can find their final product on Instagram.

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

Our goal was to change the narrative behind protest art being seen as performative and vandalism. We want to show the impact protest art had on protest movements, so we decided to create an Instagram page where we showed examples of its impact and us breaking down the narrative.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

We learned key social media skills on how to present an idea on a platform such as Instagram and how social media can be used to inform people on important matters.

Driving Question: How might we collaboratively implement a design-thinking process to meet the needs of the community we serve?

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

For this module, we all had a common goal, create a fun product for young people that will help them connect with themselves, so we produced a notebook with a lot of cool stuff in it.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

I enjoyed researching and designing the driving questions for the journal. It was really insightful for me because I was basing what we had learned from the interviews and shaping it into something our users could interact with. I like that we were able to refine our product based on the feedback we got. At first, I thought that it would be hard to change all our work for the comments, but it turns out that it was beneficial. It made our vibey journal better.

Driving Question: How might we collaboratively implement a design-thinking process to meet the needs of the community we serve?

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

The team’s main goal was to work collaboratively to achieve maximum efficacy and the best results. When we wrote the agreement, we all shared the same ideas of working in a team. We all liked working with people, but we all had concerns because the 3 of us have had somewhat bad experiences with people working on a team. However, the group bonded really well and really quickly, and that gave us a huge advantage because we knew we could trust each other, which led to more effective and fun work sessions. Also, the 3 of us wanted to work in all aspects of the project; we did not want to split roles. That’s why the 3 of us collaborated in all five parts of the design thinking process, and we did not split the work; we worked together.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

The team thought this was a huge learning experience and the 3 of us learned a lot about ourselves and how we collaborate. In addition, we learned a lot about architecture and design, considering our project lied in those fields. We learned that designing plans for a school is challenging, especially when you have to meet certain criteria for the people you are working for. We also learned that we are good collaborators because some team members thought that they were bad at working in teams. We think that the most valuable thing we learned was how to create a professional but at the same time laid back team environment that archives good efficacy. The team dynamic that we created was very effective. We can attribute its success to the agreement that we wrote and the meetings we had before actually starting to work on the project.

What did this project mean to you?

We all felt very excited about working on this project as it was both a cool opportunity to use skills we were interested in and create physical change, as well as being able to work with an organization that one of us knew personally. While the end result of this project may be years down the line, it feels good to create something that may become reality due in part to our design.

Driving Question: How can I develop and combine a well-designed and written book which conveys, in a simple but significant way, part of someone’s TGS story and experiences, by the perspective of the others?

My final product: I created a book in which TGS community members (including alumni) share stories, moments and memories with Karen, Elyce and Jamie. We didn’t have the change to properly say goodbye, and show our appreciation. So, this is a way to convey our gratitude.

Take Part in the Project: Visit the Asombro Website

Driving Question: How might we collaboratively implement a design thinking process to meet the needs of the community we serve?

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

Our collective goal was to make a fun product that could potentially boost the mental health of teenagers all around the world aged 13-17. We did it by creating Asombro – a collection of jars filled with surprising prompts suiting every person’s individual interests. Asja created the jars; Dia the website, the Instagram account, and the logo; Viktoria did the prompts.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

We learned how to apply design-thinking into making something into reality, and figured in the end that following a structured way of creating a product made the process a lot easier. Our team will definitely apply design-thinking skills to our future projects. We took into account our stakeholder’s needs by conducting over 20 empathy interviews and went through feedback sessions, and got a lot of positive responses regarding the idea. 

What did this project mean to you?

It meant a lot, each of us learned something new about ourselves.

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

Initially, my plan for this module was to produce both a song and an accompanying animation. The first thing that shattered this initial goal is the fact that I cannot sing. There is no way around it. Secondly, my laptop was not powerful enough for animations. My goal then morphed into being able to produce “paintings” on a digital medium at the standard I usually do with physical paint and a canvas.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

For one, I never thought I would ever make art from a laptop. Often when I am using my laptop, if I am not on Youtube or Reddit, I am definitely tinkering on a program or programming one thing or the other. As such, I have always labeled my laptop as a tool for me to express only the more “analytical” tenet of my creativity that solely produces output like programs, algorithms, and 3D designs. As such, I have only ever expressed the equally potent “visual” tennet of my creativity in my extensive painting and drawing. I never thought of using a laptop to produce art of the same standard I do with physical paintings. Not only that, but I never thought that painting on my laptop could put me in the transcendental flow state that physical painting always does for me. Boy, was I wrong!

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

In this module, I wanted to delve into the old East Asian Buddhist tradition of using art as a form of meditation, freeing the mind of its rational constraints and leading to samadhi or meditative awareness. I did this by both developing skills in calligraphy itself as well as attempting a form of meditation while practicing those skills and making the pieces above. The result, I hope, is some appearance of spontaneity and creativity, the two terms that anyone would use to describe the works of calligraphy that Buddhist monks in China, Japan, and Korea made while immersed in their happy, cheerful meditation.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

The most interesting thing that I learned while painting the Chinese characters was how challenging it is to attain any sort of balance or beauty with them. A simple downward brushstroke takes many months or perhaps years of practice to look even half-decent to a person who knows calligraphy. I did not get to this stage over the course of the project; what I did do was get a very brief look into the complexity of this medium – how the characters that you paint with the brush are not so much those that you paint but those that are left behind by the brush itself. Any stroke, whether it be a horizontal line or a dot, can very candidly suggest the calligrapher’s state of mind when painting it, meaning that any frustration or hesitance is immediately visible in the forms of the characters. This is perhaps the harshest aspect of calligraphy – each stroke is permanent and irrevocable, and cannot be embellished afterward. Not only does each brushstroke reveal your skill with the ink, but it will also reveal your ability to leave distracting thoughts behind and pool all of your mental energies into a single movement of the hand.

Poem Translation

The pieces above are renditions, in various styles of calligraphy, of three poems that I composed in a kind of bad Classical Chinese; the English translations are here:

Regular Style Poem

In the snore of my dog and the sound of my
Mother cooking dinner,
I hear Buddha’s joyful laugh;
Just as there are many drops of water but only one
Pond,
So are there many Buddhas but only one
Dharma.

Semi-Cursive Poem

Alone I walk to the pond,
Looking for solitary ducks to feed with my
Brown paper bag.

Cursive Poem

The perpetual sound of hail on the window –
Instead of my friends’ happy chatter,
Every day I hear only this.

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

My goals for the module were to increase my confidence in my creative abilities and be secure in my creative process. I achieved this by trying a variety of creative tools, like brainstorming and making mood boards. Through the process of being creative and learning how to weave, I slowly became confident in myself and in my final product.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

I learned that there is no one “correct” way to be creative. I also learned that it’s great to try new things and learn skills from a beginner standpoint, which is what I did with weaving. Through this, I let go of some of my fears about not being creative enough and just let myself learn, change, and grow without judgment of the process.

My Artist Statement

For my module summative, I chose to weave an abstract tapestry inspired by nature. As Covid-19 has placed almost everybody in the world in a quarantine situation, I noticed that in the news and on social media images of places around the world thriving with the lack of human interaction. Although the piece is abstract and open for interpretation, I wove it with the intention of conveying the natural beauty of the earth. I wanted to imitate the idea of a sunsetting, with the notion being that all of the mess with the coronavirus will eventually end, as every day eventually does. Additionally, I drew inspiration from two French artists and combined my module summative with my language project.

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

My goals were a mixture of self-discovery and creative growth. I wanted to learn how to trust my creative instincts while also trying to understand them. I let my creativity flow with this project and managed to map that out in some mind maps and drafts. I spent the term slowly building on this artwork, which was initially going to be a much softer floral piece, and I am super happy with what it has become. You can see my process/growth below.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

I learned a lot about the watercolor paints I was using. I practiced with them a lot and tried different techniques. I also learned that I come up with my best ideas when I’m not trying to come up with ideas, so I took breaks and made lunch or something when trying to come up with an idea. This is called ‘incubation time.’ My biggest takeaway is that I enjoy being creative, and I will continue to build on my artistic skills.

Driving Question: How might I grow my creativity during the COVID-19 crisis through exploring the science of creativity and innovation and experimenting with art?

What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?

My goal for this module was to draw more of these circular ornaments, but as time passed, it changed to learning and working comfortably with Photoshop. I did achieve that goal by watching YouTube videos and learning some aspects of Photoshop and applying them to solve different issues that I faced over the course of six weeks.

What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?

As mentioned, I learned Adobe Photoshop from scratch, but for my process, I learned that I often get attached to my ideas, and that tends to limit my creativity. But with this creation, I challenged myself and tried switching my process up. I came up with a list of ideas before I started working on any of them, and that was a very different experience for me.

My process:

1. Drawing on paper

2. Tracing on Photoshop

3. Compiling on Photoshop