Social Movement Exhibition
In this project we were tasked with making a fun way to display the op-eds that our class made all of last semester. These op-eds were based on social movements that each student resonated with, ranging from women’s rights to the state of the education system. These op-eds ranged from 2-3 pages and aren’t necessarily the most digestible form of information for a passer by. To show the meaning of each of these essays we took the most meaningful parts of the essays and used them in a small art installation along a railing on the second floor of the school. A picture of the final product on the left. The op-ed that I wrote is shown below
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At the start of this project, we learned a lot about the early social movements. This included the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the Trial of the Chicago 7. We then chose and learned about our social movement of choice. For me, I chose the Slow Movement. I chose this because it also allowed me to explore the philosophy behind the movement, something that I always try to search for in humanities projects. The Slow Movement is a conglomerate of different movements all with the belief that society moves too fast to be able to appreciate all of the different smaller moments. An example of this is choosing to find a nice place to sit down and eat food instead of opting for fast food. I researched the history of this movement and made a short slide show talking about the beliefs, purpose, and history behind it. This project greatly developed my outlook on my life and contributed to a core set of personal philosophical arguments. Throughout the project, a question that we were trying to answer was “How have social movements shaped American history and the American experience?”. The Slow Movement provided a unique insight into this because it wasn't a movement that was primarily targeting law but instead tried to connect with individuals and build a healthier society.
I learned many new things in this project from learning about Vietnam and early civil rights movements to exploring personal philosophies through my op-ed and even in the social movement that I researched. However, the most important new insights that I made were in the creation of my op-ed, The Development of Free Thinking. In this, I went about describing my insights into the school system as a student that spends a large portion of my life there. The process of writing this allowed me to realize the value of thinking for yourself and making opportunities that maximize the allowances for this. I hope that this is something that I can remember throughout the rest of my education and let it prioritize over the standard path that is expected of students.
The exhibition for my group had its troubles, to say the least. At the start of the project, we definitely had our difficulties. It took us a longer than expected amount of time to land on an exhibit. The delay was only furthered by the process of collecting quotes. Finally, we felt that we were in a comfortable place. Then, in the few days before the exhibition we realized that our initial idea would not work as well as we suspected that it would. This forced us to rapidly iterate our display into something that maintained enough of our work that we wouldn’t have to restart and something that would function as intended. I am very proud of our group for this, it was not easy to accomplish this and I think that we pulled it off well. In the next project, I will try to plan more carefully so that there are fewer troubles further down the project and that it is ultimately a better use of our time instead of just following through with a partially done, or not well-thought-out project.
I learned many new things in this project from learning about Vietnam and early civil rights movements to exploring personal philosophies through my op-ed and even in the social movement that I researched. However, the most important new insights that I made were in the creation of my op-ed, The Development of Free Thinking. In this, I went about describing my insights into the school system as a student that spends a large portion of my life there. The process of writing this allowed me to realize the value of thinking for yourself and making opportunities that maximize the allowances for this. I hope that this is something that I can remember throughout the rest of my education and let it prioritize over the standard path that is expected of students.
The exhibition for my group had its troubles, to say the least. At the start of the project, we definitely had our difficulties. It took us a longer than expected amount of time to land on an exhibit. The delay was only furthered by the process of collecting quotes. Finally, we felt that we were in a comfortable place. Then, in the few days before the exhibition we realized that our initial idea would not work as well as we suspected that it would. This forced us to rapidly iterate our display into something that maintained enough of our work that we wouldn’t have to restart and something that would function as intended. I am very proud of our group for this, it was not easy to accomplish this and I think that we pulled it off well. In the next project, I will try to plan more carefully so that there are fewer troubles further down the project and that it is ultimately a better use of our time instead of just following through with a partially done, or not well-thought-out project.