Kahaani First Reflection

Before beginning official rehearsals for kahaani , I took initiative and planned what I would be teaching the other members of my dance group in the first session. The outcome of my planning was having the choreography done to some section of the final music, which I could teach for the first few lessons. My plans changed as the activity progressed because I was planning to have all members of the dance on stage for the whole length of the music. However, restrictions dictated that only 15 members could be on stage at one time, so this plan had to be changed.

A difficulty that I faced while executing this plan was the lack of time to think it through as the first session was coming up soon. I overcame this challenge by efficient communication with my partner and managing my time well. Due to this, I was able to come up with the idea of splitting the dancers into 2 groups who would be performing in different segments of the piece. I think I would respond in the same way if faced with this challenge in the future since I believe that time management is a skill I have acquired from these experiences.

 

Movie on 21-10-20 at 8.24 PM

Humanities Magazine First Reflection

The first few sessions of Humanities magazine went quite well as I began exploring potential topics that I could write about. Something that I found difficult was choosing a topic since there was a plethora of topics to choose from. A risk that I took was deciding to explore a new area of economics which I do not know much about. This has become another challenge for me. An action that I had taken to overcome the challenge of too many choices was to choose a topic that had potential to be engaging and that I didn’t have much previous exposure to. However, I haven’t yet overcome the challenge of writing about a new topic since I haven’t had much time to research and then gather my thoughts.While approaching a challenge like this in the future, I would be careful to ensure that I keep a significant amount of time towards researching about the issue.

In this activity, I have developed the skill of writing articles as opposed to writing essays and managing my time effectively. I measured my improvement by comparing this piece to my previous pieces. The skill of time management was easier to develop since that was something I had been doing for a long time now. The skills that I have developed are very useful for this activity as I will have to use time efficiently while writing articles and the skill of writing articles as supposed to essays is important because I am writing for a magazine. I can definitely use the skill of time management in other areas of my life and the skill of writing articles may be important when I write such a piece for my english work or if I choose to pursue a journalism course in the future.

 

Kampot Khmer Global Concern First Reflection

The first few sessions of the GC went quite well as we began to investigate what support our partners wanted from us. We also split the team into different teams and began to brainstorm what we could do this year while keeping the current situation in mind. I have been participating in this Global Concern since the last two years so I did know about the issues at hand to some extent. However, this year, I learnt how the students at CLS (the school that we support by providing scholarships to about 30 students and 2 teachers’ salaries) had been impacted by the coronavirus. This issue is quite important because it directly impacts these students’ future circumstances. If these students drop out of school due to COVID, they will not be able to escape the poverty cycle.

Hence, it is especially important to support them in these times. I think my actions (participating in the GC and brainstorming what the year could look like) have had a positive impact on this issue since the aim has been to plan the year in such a way that we are able to maximise our fundraising so that we can support CLS to our maximum capacity. I think that my thinking regarding this issue has changed as a result of participating in this activity. Earlier I was concerned with the issue of  providing quality education to underprivileged children, but now I have become more caring in the sense that I actually think about how education impacts these childrens’ lives. I hope that we are able to fundraise sufficient amounts this year so that no child has to drop out of school.

 

Culturama Last Reflection

 

The video above is taken from one of the tech runs of our Culturama dance. In the final stages of our performance, I collaborated with the Culturama committee, lighting department, teachers along with other dancers and our dance leaders. An issue that caused difficulty while working together was the placement of people on stage while socially distancing. As we had to do this all the time, it became quite hard to perform the choreography and switch formations without breaking socially distancing. Social distancing was the challenge that we faced and I think that it was quite difficult to overcome this challenge but we did do so. Collaborating here was especially important to ensure that the event went well and no rules were broken. In the future, to become a better team player I would have to be more aware of what is happening around me and try to be more adaptive to new situations (such as the one we were faced with now).

Service Exec First Reflection

The first few sessions of Service Exec went quite well as I got an opportunity to look at what the Exec does to support various groups within the service department. It was also quite exciting to understand what I would be doing to support Focus groups this year as my role entails supporting them with standard procedures and protocols in relation to the events that they hold. In terms of the previous experience that I have had, I was the Vice Chair of my GC ( Kampot Khmer) last year wherein I supported the chair with all GC related work. From that experience I have realised that my strengths are meeting deadlines and remaining committed to the activity. However, I have also realised that my weaknesses lie in interacting with people and leading sessions. I hope to work on and improve those areas.

Being involved in this activity has made me realise that the strengths and weaknesses that I have spoken about still remain as they were. However, I think that I have improved in my interactions with other people. I know this because I have had to collaborate with various people in the Exec and I have felt quite confident doing so. Nevertheless, I have struggled with leading discussions, so I still feel quite nervous before presenting my views in front of the team. I think that I have struggled in this area because I am quite introverted and have a hard time presenting my ideas in general. Regardless, I hope to improve upon this area.

 

Shelby Lee Adams and Rezkallah

Global Issue: Gender and Inequality

The childer’s kitchen and schlitz beer advert

The childer’s kitchen

Beer advert

  • The beer advert is the inversion of the childer’s kitchen photograph.
  • This is because in “The childer’s kitchen”, the women are seen working in the kitchen whereas the beer advert shows the man cooking.
  • The body language in the childer’s kitchen photograph is a lot more aggressive than in the Schlitz beer advert.

 

Planning for Global Issue

How do Rezkallah’s advertisements and “Warming her pearls” explore the concepts of wealth and resources ?

Main thesis:

Rezkallah- Traditionally, only men had access to wealth and resources due to being in the public sphere. Hence advertisements were mostly directed at them and were portraying them as the “head of the family”, “important” and “dominant”, which was the case back then. Now that that is changing, Rezkallah’s advertisements depict a world where women are seen as “dominant” and in the public sphere. However, the advertisements have a hint of “falsehood” to them, showing how this situation isn’t true. Thus, conveying that wealth and resources dont determine everything.

Warming her pearls- The concept of wealth and resources is explored through the examination of how “pearls” are worn and by whom. This is because the lady, who is presumably quite wealthy, makes her servant wear her pearls and warm them, a task that is quite menial. This links to how people who lack wealth and resources and treated poorly by everyone in society.

Supporting ideas:

Rezkallah- Exaggeration to make the advertisements appear fake through changing every color to light tones “Men dont leave the kitchen advert”

Incongruity- They don’t look as though they could be placed in a real life context “Get out of the kitchen sooner”

Excessive use of photoshop- To depict that these advertisements are artificial “Tin advert”

Warming her pearls- Contrast between both character’s lives- Shows bad treatment through contrasting their daily routines “She fans herself whilst I work”

The servant does everything- Shows how the servant attends to all of her(the lady’s) needs by saying “I dust her shoulder”

Shows how the servant desires that lifestyle- Shows how the servant desires to have the pearls which are symbolic of wealth “I feel their absence and I burn”

Broader links and connection to Duffy’s poem:

Rezkallah- Link to the concept of power, does it always originate from wealth and resources? The little red cap also portrays a power dynamic.

Warming her pearls- Links to inequality, is it always present where the levels of resources that everybody has are different? The little red cap shows an inequality in terms of power.

Concluding bullet points:

Rezkallah- Does power originate from perceptions instead of actual situations?

Warming her pearls- Is there a way to eliminate inequality in treatment if the resources that everyone has are not equal?

Body of work- Rezkallah

Summary:

 

Reflection:

Rezkallah’s work on identity and representation is extremely important because it opens the audience’s eyes to their own preconceived notions. Today, society is considered to be much more accepting and liberal-minded than it was at any other time. However, when I looked at the image of his work for the first time, I thought that his work was quite unusual maybe even incongruous. Even though, I consider myself to be quite acceptive of others and their ideas, I didn’t react in the same way towards the text. This made me reassess my thoughts and actions internally and to examine if I really am as forward-thinking as I proclaim myself to be. After these events, I realised that I still have a long way to cover on the road of equality.

Unfortunately, the world does too. Even though, a lot of time has passed since the years that the original advertisements had been published in, texts depicting the situations wherein these texts had been inverted are still not widely acceptable and seen as something that is an accurate representation of society (while the non-inverted situations were seen as such).

Perhaps, this is the reason why Rezkallah has chosen to create a sense of superficialness in all his texts. He does this through the use of excessive photoshop and using clear albeit unusual backgrounds. Maybe, the idea of this seemingly “perfect world” actually symbolises how these situations will never be true in the real world, only in the “fake one”. He is right in a sense, as a lot has not changed in society with regards to how men and women are viewed and what is expected out of them even as a significant amount of time has passed.

The depiction of a seemingly “perfect world” could also have been done to comment on how everything on social media has a certain element of “falsehood” to it. As Rezkallah uses instagram to showcase his work, he may have chosen to comment on how everything we see on social media is fake by using studio created photos or photoshopped models to present a fake photograph and through it, a fake reality.

 

Analysis of Rezkallah’s text- “Get out of the kitchen sooner” in relation to Duffy’s poem- “The little Red Cap”

Both “Get out of the kitchen sooner” and “The little Red Cap” are versions of two different texts, so both of them have elements of intertextuality. Rezkallah’s work is a parody of the original “Get out of the kitchen sooner advert” through subversion. On the other hand, Duffy’s work is her own spin on the classic tale of little red riding hood. Both of these texts have introduced ideas that are quite unique. This is because Rezkallah represents a world where men are trapped in the domestic sphere and women are a part of the public sphere, presumably. On the other hand, Duffy has tried to do something idiosyncratic by establishing a reverse power dynamic between the wolf and little red riding hood.

Rezkallah has shown that men are expected to wash dishes in the world that his text is set in by depicting a male model with dishes in his hands and corresponding texts that indicate that he washes the dishes. While Duffy has shown that women may not always be the ones that are being exploited, they may be the exploiters by showing how little red riding hood uses the wolf to gain access to poetry and as that motive is accomplished she grows frustrated by the wolf and decides to leave him. Thus, Rezkallah and Duffy both showcase women as being more dominant than men, an idea which has never been the dominant discourse. The fact that these ideas could potentially be seen as “incongruous” is especially relevant because it shows a mirror to the society which claims to be quite liberal, today.

Rezkallah has created his piece by the inversion of the gender roles that were presented in the original advert while adding his own minimalistic touch to it, which makes the adverts look very clean and easy to read. Duffy’s work utilises her unique perspective in viewing the standard fairy tale. Since there was no overtly visible power dynamic or exploitation in the original tale, it would be fair to assume that Duffy has chosen to present a what if version of the original story. Her work also contains many details that were not mentioned in the original tale.

Hence, even though both Rezkallah and Duffy have based their works on other texts, their results (their work) have been derived through different processes and while Rezkallah has only showcased what he has deemed to be the most suitable pieces of images/texts that he feels will bring his message across the most clearly, Duffy has added additional details to her own story. This could be because Duffy has chosen to write a poem, which may be enhanced through the use of descriptive elements while a advert does not need a lot of descriptions for the audience to understand its message. Another difference between Rezkallah’s work and Duffy’s is that his work presents a fake world as previously discussed, however, Duffy presents a very real world since the poem is possibly, partly based on her life. The differences in their creation process and their styles of presenting their works emphasise that similar messages may be conveyed through different methods.

To conclude, both Duffy and Rezkallah have their own distinctive styles of creating their works, which share some messages. While, Rezkallah’s style represents a world that doesn’t exist, Duffy sets her work in today’s world and is quite realistic. Rezkallah tells the audience how men are still seen as dominant and incongruous in the domestic sphere. Duffy tells the audience that woman may also be dominant and independent. Nevertheless, both works communicate essential ideas about women being perceived as “weak” and “submissive”, even in today’s society, which should not be the case.