/there is a village/ 10/31~11/12 /

Posted by Sei Lee on November 16, 2011
Nov 162011

“I’d like to suggest <THERE IS A VILLAGE> for a title of our project.”
This first sentence shows both one of my main tasks in our project and direction we’re heading to.

I’m a person who enjoys listening to others’ saying as a way of figuring out them. I believe people need to have enough time to listen to one another before mentioning on whatever is relevant to others. I’m also a person who tends to make some words “we” can use together. I would say this position can be likened to a thinker or a choreographer. Thinker conceptualizes individual’s experience for an effective or a deeper communication and choreographer designs how people are together at one place.

Before our preliminary meeting, I asked and collected what each member can do and what they want to do for this project. Based on the information, I tried to make a path for us to take first. I suggested some keywords we could search or research together such as industry(fish), specific group of people(children). In our first meeting, we had a time to listen to each one’s interest and I chose keywords and made some diagrams/graphs to visualize the intersection of our interests. I also could search for additional materials and supporting ideas which are relevant to each one’s interests.

I’ve sometimes expressed my opinion with a format of “would-prefer-not-to.” It is usually keenly related to attitude, approach, and form that we would remain in the project. I would prefer not to make others’ pain as just a subject of our “artistic” project since it makes me “uncomfortable.” I would prefer not to make our toys as a tool of giving a disciplinary framework to children. I would prefer not to make artistic things and I would rather make artworks. . . . . . . . . I wanted to pursue this series of attitude in not only specific contents we will deal with but also process we will follow when doing project.

In short, we will make “toys” for children to “play” with them. We can make some narratives using these toys as a format of video and performance. One of stories is almost like “fable.” The other is like a puppet theatre. Also, the stories themselves can be a gift. We’re trying to consider emotional status of children and fish in a relation with their real life.

With Jackee and Giacomo, I’ll design and make a “table-top landscape” with “toys.” I’ll make a story and video and search for a device to deliver our video to them. Also, I can contribute to utilizing video, sound and lights in a performance or final presentation. But regarding our current phase, I want to say making toys is primary and important task, so I’ll focus on it for the time being.

 

One thought I want to say lastly,,

We are a certain group of people who tries not to forget others’ current struggling and painful memories. Personally, I think, what we can do is just expressing our empathies sending along things we made. We don’t have to insist on the terms “healing” or whatever. Artistic responses to crisis and conflict don’t need to imitate other interventions or expressions that have taken place in somewhat larger discourses. I want to be a just nice neighbor of theirs.