Author: AK

Before

“Creating a kinder world through art” The Memory Project is dedicated to promoting intercultural awareness, friendship, and kindness between children around the world through the universal language of art. The Portrait Program is where high school students create portraits as special gifts for children facing substantial challenges. This is for all levels of ability, the activity will look at different portraiture methods to produce high-quality art portraits of and for children around the world who are part of the Memory Project. This will be a fun, creative and meaningful activity where I can work using artistic skills I already possess or learn new skills.

In this activity I hope to achieve learning outcome 1, identifying own strengths and develop areas for growth. In addition to this activity being a meaningful service to the members of our community I also want to use this opportunity to further my skills as an artist and optimise my abilities. There’s an added layer of pressure with the expectation of drawing someone you see everyday and I will be the focal point of your artwork. Facing the pressure of having the possibility of making the person displeased is usually frightening and would have previously drawn me away from doing portraiture. However I will use this activity as a method of dealing with my internal conflict and will learn how to accept challenges and grow with them.

I want to also achieve learning outcome 2, demonstrate undertaking challenges and developing new skills in the process. Like mentioned previously this activity will prove to be a journey of self growth, and that won’t come without a challenge. I want to be sure that from this I will be able to have a growth mind-set, telling myself that I can improve and will take to following steps to. While keeping in mind the message behind the activity and its impact on our community.

during:

My first task is to create a portrait of Yuzil, our school secretary and a member of staff. In the beginning of the activity I was one of the few grade 11s attending with grade 12 students present, I was also the only student who newly joined the activity since other members were already attending it. This was intimidating for myself in the beginning as I felt new to the group and thought I would have to work especially hard to build up my working pace in order to equally contribute to the project, as other members were already working on their developed work.

In order to face this challenge and insure that I can contribute to the project’s initiative I chose to use to use with a medium I was familiar with and could work quickly, I chose to do the portrait in water colours. Even though water-colours can be uncomfortable to work with as they take a long time to dry and can be hard to manage, I picked it as my medium since it will allow me to showcase my skillset but also build my confidence and work efficiency as an artist.

After:

After completing Yuzil’s portrait I got the chance of gifting it to her as she was leaving our school community as a parting gift, this made my participation and effort in the project very full-filling and grateful. Yuzil has been working in our school for a very long time, helping many students behind the scenes through participating in planning and organising various activities and events. Knowing her for over 5 years and being one of the students she helped I felt incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to showcase my gratitude for her work and effort.

In this activity I was able to achieve learning outcome 1, identifying own strengths and identify areas for development, through using my familiar medium of work through water-colours. I was able to identify my strengths in navigating the characteristics of my tools in order to create a good piece of work. However an area for development I identified is managing my time efficiently. Even though my work was done well it still took a long time to be completed, even if using water-colours required meticulous work and more effort, I should have worked in larger sections and later added the details when working through the artwork. I learnt that even though the quality of my work proved to be great, I need to find a way of working efficiently and neatly.

In this activity I was able to achieve learning outcome 2, demonstrating undertaking challenges and developing new skills in the process through my work. One of the challenges I undertook was overstepping my fear of drawing portraits. As someone who draws frequently I tend to place pressure on myself when doing a drawing for or of someone I know, and when I started the portrait of Yuzil I was especially cautious since not only was she someone I knew, but the medium and canvas size were also intimidating. Through slowly developing and building up the painting I became more comfortable with working with water-colours since I chose to cross-hatch shade instead of forcefully blend and started to trust the process and became more patient, I simultaneously undertook a personal challenge and developed new skills.

(Yuzil’s final portrait)

Before:

Culturama is one of our school’s biggest events, consisting of beautiful cultural dances, planning behind the scenes done collaboratively with the student dance leaders and students who work behind the scenes with the staff from our school community. As a student in our school reaching my final years studying here, I wanted to try to participate in this dance event in order to make great memories with my friends and contribute to an amazing experience that I could share with others.

I have previously auditioned for Culturama 2020, unfortunately I wasn’t picked for the dance I auditioned for, so I want to use this year as an opportunity to try harder in my audition and do it again. For this activity I hope to achieve learning outcome 4, showing commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences. I would also want to achieve learning outcome 7, recognizing and considering the ethics of choices and actions.

During:

For Culturama I was placed in the group which would do one of the Indian dances. Having previously done a dance from Indian culture for Kahaani, I am looking forward to learning more about it and adding onto the knowledge I already have of it.

Kahaani is currently happening in the middle of a very busy period for myself as coursework and deadlines from school curriculum begins to pile up and overwhelm me. However I am still strongly committed to the dance and performing well in order to show my appreciation for this culture and the effort put in my the student leaders. Therefore I am trying my best to manage practicing outside of rehearsals as well as my regular work load.

As it’s an event focused on various and diverse cultures I am becoming increasingly aware of the responsibility I have of being considerate of my actions throughout this period in order to made sure that I am in no way shape or form being disrespectful of Indian culture and my peers who are teaching me the dance elements of it.

(practice video)

after:

On the actual performance day there was an issue with my costume which lead to multiple problems during our performance. This was a very challenging issue to confront as I had to act quickly upon it but also do it in a way that wouldn’t take away from the performance, even though it was incredibly challenging due to the audience consisting of other dancers which was there to support us. I persevered and tried to remain professional in the moment and managed to complete the dance, I was also offered help by the other members in my group who helped me with the costume malfunction and assisted me in completing the dance for the recorded performance.

In Culturama I was able to achieve learning outcome 4, showing commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences. Apart from managing my workload and the commitments around rehearsals and practices, and also persevering through the errors occurring on the recording day, I was doing my best in committing to learning the unique features of the dance but also participating in the whole project.

I was also able to achieve learning outcome 7, recognizing and considering the ethics of choices and actions. As an event focused on spreading the beautiful cultures represented in our school, I was increasingly cautious of being respectful and showing my appreciation for the Indian culture in the dance. I was careful to ensure I wouldn’t act disrespectful and instead show my appreciation for it by trying my best in the performance.

 (photo from recorded performance)

Before event:

Kahaani is an annual fund raising event hosted by Kolkata GC with the aim of raising enough funds through ticket sales for their focus group to help those with disabilities in India. This year’s Kahaani will be hosted online with pre recorded dances organised by students with a special performance at the end of the show. I wanted to join Kahaani this year because my friend was hosting the dance, and because I enjoyed doing Dance Showcase in grade 10 I thought that completing another dance event would be great.

I hope in this CAS activity I will be able to complete learning outcome 6, demonstrating engagement with issues of global significance. All of the dances are inspired by Bollywood movies, all telling a story of a character living with a disability and how they manage with it. Since Kolkata NGO helps people with disabilities I want to show how this event brings attention to the significant issue of how people with disabilities aren’t accommodated for and its global scale.

I also hope to achieve learning outcome 2, undertake challenges and develop new skills in the process. Since in this dance project I would be learning more about the dances of Indian culture – something I am unfamiliar with – I hope to approach this new task with a positive mindset and learn more about the unique features of it that makes it so distinguishable from other styles of dancing, and hopefully I would be able to familiarise myself with it in order to be able to properly perform in the final show.

During activity:

At the beginning of practice process I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to perform the dance well and learn all of the dance moves correctly due to the intimidatingly energetic nature of the dance and the multiple steps and challenging choreography included. Our Kahaani dance leaders were very patient but also maintain discipline among the dancers, this allowed me to learn the new dance moves quickly and do them well.

I also began to build appreciation for the specific details within the dance and how some features of it were referencing the movie addressing disabilities and showcasing a light on those who are overlooked because of it. The dance was also very energetic and therefore exciting since I was able to participate in it with my classmates and friends and turn it into a shared learning experience. Although at times it was increasingly hard to keep up with the pace due to the physically taxing dance routine, with every rehearsal I felt more confident in my ability to perform well in the dance for the show.

(first practice)

After activity:

Kahaani 2021 was one of the most memorable dance projects I got to participate in, I was able to learn new dance moves, build a deeper appreciation for Indian culture but also acknowledge by abilities and further develop them – all whilst making memorable events with me and my friends and classmates.

In Kahaani I was able to achieve learning outcome 2, undertaking challenges and develop new skills in the process. Some of the challenges I had to undertake was learning the new dance moves, specific to Indian dance. I was also cautious to ensure I perform them well and properly to show respect for the culture and acknowledge it, whilst pushing myself physically in terms of my endurance throughout the dance.

I was also able to achieve learning outcome 6, demonstrating engagement with issues of global significance. By participating in Kahaani I managed to directly engage with issues of global significance through learning about it and donating to the cause, which in this case were supporting individuals with disabilities and giving them a platform to express themselves and their opinions.

(final recorded performance)

Before activity:

Dance Showcase is an annual school event where dancers from high school and those who take dance classes as part of their curriculum have the opportunity to showcase their abilities in a themed event where multiple student-led and company-led dances are performed in front of the whole UWC community. The themes range each year with an interesting meaning behind it.

I chose to join Dance Showcase this year because I did it last year with my friends and found the whole experience very enjoyable, we all created good moments and still look back at the time with happy memories. This year I am planning on joining my friends dance and using this opportunity to both get active but also have fun with my peers.

I hope to achieve learning outcome 5, demonstrating the skills and recognising the benefits of working collaboratively. In a dance routine there are many instances when it can feel too hard or you just lose motivation, and that has very obvious outcomes on the final performance. In this year’s showcase I want to provide support to my peers and also have someone to help me when needed. Motivation is highly related to teamwork, and in order for the final product to look amazing both qualities have to be high.

During activity:

During the practice period for Dance Showcase I felt more challenged as I found the choreography more physically taxing and I had a harder time memorising the steps. However during practice time I would often as my peers about specific points in the dance and how they should be done and in what sequence, and when we were assessed in two groups I tried my best to cheer up my group mates and keep them positive.

In the dance there were many tricky parts which were pointed out by the dance leaders, we had to work on that part for a longer period of time and make sure that we could all do it individually without help. I took time to practice outside of school and make sure I could do the dance from memory and do it well.

This practice was very beneficial in the end as I grew more confident in my abilities and it gave me the opportunity to help the people in my dance group in the parts that they were struggling with. This allowed us to grow together and increase the spirits in the dance group, we felt comfortable with each other and were able to have fun whilst practicing the dance.

(stage practice)

After activity:

After completing Dance Showcase I felt proud of our group and myself, even though this year’s show was different because of COVID guidelines and we had to be very energetic to make up for the lack of audience, it was still a very rewarding experience. The dance itself was very fun and entertaining, I enjoying learning and doing it with my group.

There were some challenges faced throughout the practices, some people had a harder time understanding the steps and were not sure what to do at what point in the dance. With the oncoming deadlines the dance leaders were very tense and worried that the final product won’t be as good as the previous years.

But even with the challenges faced we as a group managed to perform a very good dance and most importantly have fun while doing so. I think that I managed to demonstrate learning outcome 5, demonstrating skills and recognising the benefits of working collaboratively. Apart from the obvious benefits of collaborative work such as being able to create interesting dance formations that looked good, the behind the scenes process of learning the dance and collaborating as a team showed to me the importance of being able to have good relationships within the team in order to produce something that is more emotionally involving and enjoyable.

(final recorded performance)

Before starting:

I-India is an NGO based in Jaipur, India that aims to empower and protect street children and women who often run away from their homes because of abuse, child marriage and child labour. These children and women then take refuge in I-India’s homes, whilst also being provided with food, emotional support and education, which allows the women and children to start a new life, and eventually break out of the poverty cycle. This newly established I-India GC in high school aims to help support the NGO through raising awareness and hosting events in exciting and creative ways that reflect and support the I-India cause.

In this service I hope to achieve learning outcome 3, demonstrating how to initiate and plan CAS experiences. Since this is a new service in High School there will be expectations of it creating it’s own fund raising event and leaving a strong impression on the UWC community, and in this service I could use this opportunity to help plan, host and carry out a fund raising event where the participants get the chance to have a CAS experience.

I also hope to achieve learning outcome 1, identifying own strengths and areas for growth. In this service I hope to take over the role of the head of media, I am more confident in my creative skills and thanks to my background work for the grade 10 enterprise fair I know more about the work behind marketing. I am looking forward to being in a leadership position where I can work together with my peers for a greater cause.

during service:

In order to push myself out of my comfort zone and learn new skills, I decided to apply for the position of Co-Head of Media, where I would be responsible for the promotion of the Group and assisting in the creative developments of various things. Apart from supervising and maintaining the constant updating of our Service Groups portfolio in order to raise awareness of our work and achievements, we have also as a committee contributed to the promotion and organisation of our first fund raising event called “Umang”. In this event members of our school community were able to submit their artworks based on three key themes the event was based on, participants were meant to find sponsors and were later awarded based on best work by school level and most contributions made.

Organising and actually carrying out the fundraising event was very demanding as we had to help in creating a framework which the next year students could also use to also raise funds and help the i-India NGO. In Media we utilised the creative skills in order to help promote event and engage audiences from various grade levels. Apart from helping making the poster and certificate template, I was also responsible for making three different outlines the junior school kids could use in order to participate in the event. I ended up creating three line-art pieces which junior school students used in the event.

(roles and responsibilities in collecting donations)

after service:

as the co-Head of Media Committee, participating in i-India global concern was very gratifying as I could contribute to the “Umang” fund raising event but also find new skills and develop previous ones.

I was able to achieve learning outcome 1, identifying own strengths and areas for growth. After working at the position of Co-Head of Media Committee, I was able to reflect upon myself as a collaborator and an individual. Taking on a leadership position proved to be enjoyable as I became more comfortable with it, instead of remaining intimidated by the responsibilities I had to share. I recognised my strengths of thinking creatively but also recognised communication as an area of growth for myself. When supervising the members of the Media committee I could have done a better job at communicating my ideas, if I could develop this further it would increase my suitability in a leadership position.

I was also able to achieve learning outcome 3, demonstrating how to initiate and plan CAS experiences. Through using my strongest skills and the newly acquired ones, I was able to help contribute to the “Umang” fund raiser event in which students from our school community were able to showcase their creative artistic ability through making an original piece of work in line with the themes of the event, by helping plan and make activities as Co-Head of Media Committee.

(one of the stencils I made)

Before starting:

Capturing East is a service that aims to celebrate the members of the UWCSEA community that work behind the scenes and make our campus a clan and safe place. Capturing East connects with support staff, teachers, and students through conducting interviews and exhibitions, to bring their stories to the spotlight in creative and interactive ways. I decided to join this service as it allows me to know more about the people who put in so much effort to provide such a great experience  for the students everyday.

In this service I hope to achieve learning outcome 4, showing commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences. In the service we have to find willing participants, arrange interviews and conduct them, write an article and later publish it after receiving feedback. It will be a chance to show commitment and perseverance because I am not a social person and find it hard to communicate with people I don’t know well, with the chance of conducting interviews I get an opportunity to push myself out of the comfort zone and get to know people in our community. It will be challenging at first, but since it is the service’s mission it can be a motivation for me to go through the process and learn new social skills which I will be able to use in life.

Outcome 5, demonstrating skills and recognising the benefits of working collaboratively. In the Capturing East service team work is integral at every step of the process, when suggesting people to interview you have to collaborate on who, what, where and when you should do so and when writing the article you should also be working with others to make sure the article is well written and doesn’t portray the interviewee in a bad light.

I am looking forward to meeting new people and getting to work with them, having an opportunity to build my collaborative skills and recognise the people in our community will be very beneficial to me and my personal growth.

(my first interview transcript)

During activity:

When carrying out the interview I had to come up with the list of people to interview and email them and then planning a time to meet accordingly. In my first interview I got the chance to talk to Felicia, Ravin and Helena. All three of them work in the Boarding House and I get to seem them everyday. In the interview I got to find out more about their work and their role requirements in the boarding house, how they deal with certain issues and how their role requires talking to parents and taking care of the facilities. In the beginning of the process I was not confident since I find it hard to start a conversation with someone I don’t regularly talk to, I was also worried if I would be able to obtain enough information to create a full article. However once the interview started I became very comfortable, the interviewees were very talkative and would talk to each other and encourage more conversation. I would sometimes insert myself into the conversation to encourage and suggest more prompts to get the conversation going, the interview was successful and I managed to write up a good article on them.

In the service group we underwent many changes in roles and requirements, in some instances the changes were very challenging. When the grade 10 members of the service left for their Exams the G11 members had to look after the G9 to help them with all the steps in the process and correcting anything that didn’t seem right. This was also a challenge because the G9 were unfamiliar with the service and we had to start from scratch when introducing them to their roles. Additionally to that, there was an update in roles and requirements in the service after a meeting was held on increasing efficiency of our work. I suggested to use the method of division of labour, that instead of every person writing their own article from their own interview, people who prefer writing can write and those who are more comfortable with interviewing can interview. There were also added positions for the more creative jobs which I over took.

With all of these new updates I realised and learned the importance of collaborative work, with the new roles and opportunities it was integral for our service to work together in order to produce a high quality piece of work and to move forward with our initiative. And with the new updates in the service I tried to show commitment and perseverance in the CAS experience, I helped G9 students when creating the mentor slides and making templates for the posters which we will be putting up in school.

After activity:

After completing the service I became more confident in my abilities to participate and lead certain roles in the service. Throughout the whole time of the service running, importance of collaborative work was highlighted in each article done, in every poster planned and slide show made.

The service changed the work responsibilities for the students by creating a new structure of how articles would be developed, instead of one person being responsible for a single article starting from the process of interviewing and publishing the article, now each person has a separate responsibility to take over in the process of making an article. since the service was also advancing to sharing the work with the school through the medium of posters and slide shows for the grade, I was given the responsibility of not only creating the slide template and doing weekly updates of the slides, but also teaching Grade 10 students of how to perform my role and responsibilities after I leave the service.

(mentor presentations)

Overall, after completing Capturing East, I have been able to achieve learning outcome 4, showing commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences- by adapting to the changes in the methods in place of completing interviews. I have also achieved learning outcome 5, demonstrating skills and recognising the benefits of working collaboratively when all students began to share responsibility of a specific role when completing an interview and writing an article to ensure the work we released was good.

IB was challenging to get accustomed to, the new schedule and workload were proven to be a hard task to manage, however I am proud of myself for being able to deal with these challenges and learning new lessons that will be useful to use in future.

Having the opportunity to take my favourite subjects was both a blessing and a burden, the hL subjects I enjoy would sometimes become the things I dread. This was discouraging at times when I had to work hard, but in the end I pushed through because I tried to remind myself the reason why the subjects are worth my time and why I chose them.

I will focus more on my HL subjects Psychology, Mathematics and Biology because I am aiming to get 7 in all of them and I know that I have the capacity to do so.  All of them are subjects I am passionate about, I will have to develop my skills of time management and planning.

Outside of school I realised the importance of spending time for yourself and taking care of yourself, with the workload of IB and a habit of procrastination it is easy to be left without any free time. We are still growing and need room to breathe and get to know other people, and I would like to think that I managed to do that at time. I am proud of myself because I pushed boundaries at my social skills and got to meet new people in school and become aquatinted with them.

My advice for myself is that time is key, what I choose to do with it and how I manage it can be either detrimental or beneficial. I have to remember that I have the power to do what I want and need, and that as long as I try I will succeed.