Driving Question: How can we model a clay sculpture inspired by Mexican beliefs and religious syncretism (the merging of different beliefs) to represent a fusion of our personal beliefs and values?
Project Summary: For her project, Minahil created a sculpture of Qandeel-e-Zeist (Light of Life), which embodies the values and beliefs that guide and enlighten her life.
Minahil’s project blends Zapotec symbolism, the Chinese Yin and Yang, Quranic verses, Urdu poetry, and personal emblems that convey how different cultures, people, and places have shaped the person Minahil is today.
The treasure chest represents her beliefs and values and highlights how the elements in her sculpture are invaluable to her. Leaving the treasure chest open expresses the importance of being open-minded. It further indicates how her values and beliefs are changing.
Student Reflection: “Everyone in the world has a set of values and beliefs that guide and enlighten their lives. Through this module, I learned about my own values and beliefs in-depth, developed a greater understanding and appreciation of the personal values of indigenous cultures in Oaxaca, especially the Zapotecs.”
Driving Question: How can I preserve a part of Zapotec history and give it a new life in the form of VR experiences?
Project Summary:
Aarushi and Alex’s video focused on the Central Valley of Oaxaca and the civilization that emerged known as the “Be’ena’ Za” or “The Cloud People.” The Be’ena’ Za thrived and became one of the largest civilizations in Mesoamerica, and today they are known as the Zapotec.
Alex and Aarushi introduce viewers to the world of the Zapotec through a VR experience. Their video takes you back in time on a journey into the magnificent city of Monte Albán. The pair invite you to embrace the wisdom of the Zapotec through astrology, religious, and ancient beliefs.
Student Reflection: This module was really exciting for me. I learned a lot of new things and added multiple new subjects to my skill set. This module was also extremely challenging since I had no real prior knowledge about virtual reality or archaeology, but because of our excursions and guest speakers, I was able to create a video VR experience which I am extremely proud of!”- Aarushi A.
Driving Question: How can I apply an understanding of flow state into physical activity and self reflection order to increase my well being?
Project Description:
For this module, as a way to further learn about the flow state, I began learning how to hula hoop. During this process, I documented my practice each week and made a compilation video of my progress. This video shows my progress from when I first got my hoop, only knowing a few simple tricks, to six weeks in, when I have learned several more complex techniques.
Reflection:
“For me, what was most interesting about this project was not so much the hula hooping aspect, but learning about the flow state. I have been interested in neuroscience for quite some time now, and it was fascinating to be learning about something I could so clearly see demonstrated in my life through the practice with hula hooping.”
Driving Question: How might we produce a product or concept that contributes to a more sustainable fashion future?
Final Product: My summative product for this module was a textile art rug bag that visually incorporated ideas of punk and queer fashion. The bag itself is sort of a tote bag style and on each side there is a different design that I hand punched. For the “punk” side of the bag I designed a traditionally punk aesthetic image of an eye, a large X in front of it, and the words “F**k off”. When designing this, I wanted to keep in mind the traditional punk look as well as the values of being anti-capitalist, anti-oppression, and just generally living outside of the traditional social norms. For the other side of the bag, I wanted to express more ideas of the queer self and experience with a rainbow design around a stick figure body. My aim was for it to be colorful and expressive, just like the queercore fashion movements that intersected with the punk subculture.
What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?
I wanted to have fun creating my own unique textile art piece that incorporated different subculture fashions I was interested in exploring. I also wanted to grow in my creativity and continue to make new pieces as an artist. I got to learn a lot more about the history of punk fashion and the queer community’s influence on it. I’m really happy with my final product because I think it’s a very unique piece that not only visually represents the aesthetics of this movement, but because I also made it myself, it embodies the values of the punk and queercore movements as well.
What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?
I’m pretty new to making rugs, but I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the art form. Making this rug bag was a bit of a risk, but I’m really proud of how it turned out. I like taking creative risks and having fun with my art. In the future, I hope to continue to have fun and practice creativity with any art project I do.
January 14, 2021 by Effie H., Teddy F. , and Zuzanna W.
Driving Question: How can we think critically to effectively inform citizens in a media manipulated world?
What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?
Our goal was to raise awareness about hemp and show some common misconceptions about this plant while connecting it all to the theme of sustainability. We presented our campaign on Instagram.
What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?
We learned that the process of choosing a font is a very long one and that critical thinking skills can help us find misconceptions in the social media world.
Driving Question: How might we produce a product or concept that contributes to a more sustainable fashion future?
What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?
My goals for this module were to learn more about the circular economy in Estonia’s fashion industry and create a sustainable sneaker design using existing solutions. I achieved my goals by doing research and then creating a small presentation and designing a shoe using Photoshop. I gained inspiration from various sneaker companies. My presentation is down below, but you can also access it HERE on Canva, in case you’d like to check out the links and citations.
What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?
In this module, we focused on all the necessary and unavoidable future developments in the fashion industry, which will hopefully happen during the next few decades. As climate change is slowly starting to emerge from all the other problems under the sun, companies are trying to keep up with the demand for sustainable garments. A good illustration of how serious climate change is would be comparing it to our body temperature – if one’s below 37 degrees Celsius, it’s alright. However, only 2 degrees make a big difference in one’s well-being. For example, when I had a high fever, I felt extremely lethargic – now, imagine the Earth not functioning properly. Exactly – it would be a mess, especially happening at a rapid speed!
It was encouraging to learn how other countries have inspired the Estonian Ministry of the Environment to participate in improving their circular economy systems and how studies conducted have found that, although there’s still a lot of improvement to be done, the environmental awareness index had increased from 37,5/100 in 2014 to 47/100 in 2020. This module made me notice a lot of things I haven’t before, and before buying anything, I’d advise everyone to not rely heavily on surmise, but rather think twice before letting a new clothing item into your life.
My summative consisted of making a brief summary about sustainability in the Estonian fashion industry. Additionally, I also designed an illustrative sneaker that could contribute to the importance of sustainability. I learned that it’s very challenging to learn how to use Photoshop, even more so to master the art of designing a sneaker (which I think I still need to practice in case I want to continue exploring this area of fashion). I didn’t know a lot about materials and where they’re sourced from in Estonia, nor did I know how much of an impact we could have on garment factory workers’ health and well-being. It wasn’t a big surprise for me to discover that making a sneaker using entirely Estonian-sourced goods would most likely result in more CO2 emissions than just buying it in bulk from Finland, where they, in turn, get it from India or Turkey.
Driving Question: How might we produce a product or concept that contributes to a more sustainable fashion future?
What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?
Across Africa, traditional prints are integral to feelings of belonging to a group, defining identities, and showing who you are. For generations, cultures around the continent have traditionally made textiles. Using my brand, I hope to show homage to these cultures and disseminate the stories behind their textiles while also using fashion as a catalyst for change to encourage more women to engage in more physical fitness.
For this project, I designed two collections for my activewear brand, Jarabi Fitness, paying homage to traditional African textiles and celebrating African culture and heritage. The designs included West Africa Kente prints and Dashiki prints. Using my platform, I also created blog posts detailing the cultural significance of the prints.
What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?
I learned that my creative process tends to veer towards putting hours of work in on one day when I feel motivated, as opposed to stretching my work out over time. Once I feel a jolt of motivation, I’m able to get a lot of things done.
Driving Question: How might we produce a product or concept that contributes to a more sustainable fashion future?
What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?
I made a magazine-like platform that showcases my process through creating the sketches, from my research on sustainable fabrics, why I chose the points from the fashion manifesto and finally each design allocated to the material they are made from. One of my main focuses for the module was to make sure that people embraced using sustainable materials in their designs and creations. I also wanted to include the theme of simplicity, not that trendy.
I guess I could say I was able to learn new art skills like making art sketches and a bit of digital art. I think I have a good understanding of what sustainable materials are best for the fashion industry, which makes sense, because combining sustainability into my designs was my main focus for the summative assessment.
What did you learn about yourself or about your creative process or about your medium?
I got to learn how to work with digital designing through Illustrator and Photoshop. However, it’s still a growing skill for me so I wasn’t able to showcase it for my final product, but I hope to continue improving on it. Making digital art made me realize that there is more to just drawing and painting-basically all the physical work-that can also be expressed in computers which is cool!
I also learned that it’s helpful to look at others’ work for guidance.
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.
