December 14, 2015 - 02:31
My project is online, here
In creating my poem and small paintings, I was attempting to play not only with the idea of identity and the way one's words tie into sense of self and story. I took quotes from several sources- "Imagining Medea", a Medea project performance for Planned Parenthood, my fellow classmates (inside and outside the prison), and myself. The faces were selections of sketches made in my notebooks over the course of the semester. In dissociating the paintings from from their original identities and the words from their original contexts and owners, I wanted to build a new narrative where the voices were unclear. I feel like I did accomplish this, though I think my project would greatly benefit from having more painitngs than I had time to complete. Ideally, I would have the faces of strangers and members of the Medea Project and more prisoners, if at all possible, to change the role of voice to be both more present in and dissociated from the poem itself. I feel like most of what I learned in this project ended up unrepresented in the final piece, which was a frustration. I did for instance read much more of "Imagining Medea" than we covered in class, and spent a lot of time exploring information on other prison theater groups. I just did not feel they incorporated themselves as fully into the art I found I most wanted to create in the end.
The opening event was a strange affair- it was really wonderful seeing everyone's work come together in our displays, and to feel freed from the project so it could stand on its own a bit more, but the disconnecting led to a lot of strange mingling moments, wherein no one really knew if they should be doing something or explaining their work at all. Despite my lack of coffee/alertness on friday morning, I really enjoyed our conversation. It felt like the most productive version of our "freedom" debate that we've had. While it continued to revolve back into the hands of those of us in the 360, which was a little self-defeating [and I am definitely involved in that, as someone who spoke], we built in new, interesting directions. It was the kind of conversation I had been picturing when the socrates cafe was first described to us. I really appreciated our examinations of when we felt most free and what that implied about our worlds.