Essay plan on Spring in the Trenches- Paul Nash

“Spring in the Trenches” is an exceedingly ironic artwork by Paul Nash based on the World War 2. First enlisted as a soldier to fight in the army in the early 1917’s, he was invalidated and sent back soon, just before an attack that caused his regiment to perish. However, Nash was sent back to the frontlines again soon, but as a “propaganda artist” this time. “Spring in the Trenches” is based on an incongruous scene that he had witnessed during the springtime of 1917s, a time when he was still in the army. He had witnessed birds chirp and vegetation spur out of nowhere while man prepared to kill man. Such juxtaposition seemed the very embodiment of the characteristics that man and nature were exhibiting at that time . Overwhelmed by the extreme effect that such juxtaposition created, he wrote about it to his wife, describing the scene as: ” Ridiculous, mad incongruity!”. In the piece, Nash uses various elements of space, colour and light to tell the audience about the time in history when man and nature were in conflict with each other, when nature was creating and man was destroying. Nash’s use of such visual elements also help establish the far-reaching effects of the catastrophe that was the war.

The light in the artwork is perhaps its most salient feature as it gives it its defining qualities. The light appears to be quite natural, presumably, sunlight. It is what gives the piece its distinguishing overall bright demeanour, which is quite uncommon for a Nash painting. Nash’s use of light is quite significant in this piece as it helps highlight the aspects of nature present, in particular. As the bright light shines from the east, the trees and the land in the middle are accentuated. Due to this, the audience is able to notice the bloom of a couple trees in the backdrop, which gives rise to the thought that it is “spring “, as that is usually when nature blooms. The use of this direct light (or the absence of it) also helps in distinguishing man and nature. As natural elements are in the sphere of the painting that is characterised by bright light, man is left in the dimly-lit sphere, which again places emphasis upon nature and its creations. Perhaps, the dimly lit sphere is a symbol of the darkness that has filled humans as they have resorted to wreaking havoc on each other and on nature through the means of a war. It could be representative of a gloom that has surrounded the race ever since it has begun treading on the path of destruction. Overall then light is to be considered as a pivotal element of the piece.

Space: Extreme distance between trees is representative of the destruction that has been caused due to the war. Use of background and foreground helps in the presentation of the juxtaposition and establishment of the conflict.

Colour: Bright colour palette contrasts against the shadows in the foreground which again deepens the conflict. The bright colours also indicate the time of the day: morning. Soldiers sleeping at this time are representative of the way that the war has changed them, thus identifying a root-cause.

End with expressing that the war was the root cause of humans starting to destroy, thus being in constant conflict with their surroundings and with each other.

IFP Second Reflection

The first few sessions of IFP went quite well. After the session on conflict, its nature, its domain and its types, I can sufficiently say that I understand a lot more about it more about it now. I used to think that all types of conflicts were very similar in nature in that they arose from disagreement and could be physical or emotional. Now I think that conflict is a multifaceted concept that has different domains and can even be psychological. In this session we also learnt about the different types of conflict like regional, global, international, community, etc…

I showed my commitment, resilience and perseverance for this activity by attending every session so far and engaging with the content. Alongside showing my commitment this has been very rewarding for me personally as I have gotten the chance to learn about topics such as conflict, in depth.I continued to maintain my motivation for this activity by thinking of the invaluable knowledge that I would gain by being a part of such an activity. Although MY commitment didn’t make the activity “successful”, I truly believe that it helped my knowledge of topics related to peace building, which added to the activity’s aim of teaching students to be successful peace builders. One of the activities that we did was drawing each other’s portraits.

Here is the portrait I drew:

Here is my portrait:

Humanities Magazine Second Reflection

In the last few sessions of Humanities magazine, I finished the article that I had started writing. During this process, I re-discovered my strength of finishing my work on time as I was done with my article a long time before it was due. A challenge that I faced was writing “creatively” since most of my pieces are usually styled like an essay. I overcame this challenge by asking my peers to give me feedback and suggestions on how to make the piece a more captivating read. A risk that I took was in the name of the title. I am not accustomed to creating eye-catching titles as essays mostly have titles that are more factual than interesting. I think that this risk paid off because my peers and the teachers were quite happy with it.

A skill that I developed because of this activity is definitely being efficient with time. I discovered that I was able to write the article in a short amount of time and the editing did not take up a very long time. Later, when my editor suggested some changes that I could make to the piece, I did that quite quickly. Lastly, I hope to continue developing my time-management skills alongside writing more creatively as the year progresses and we start working on our second article. In addition to that, below is the second piece that I have started working on.

Kampot Khmer Global Concern Second Reflection

 

Questions asked:

  1. Who did you collaborate with?
  2. How important was collaboration to achieving the outcome?
  3. What could you do in the future to be a more effective team player? Audio Player

Kahaani Second Reflection

In Kahaani, we have started to teach our choreography. For the first few sessions I split the main group into 2 separate groups. Then my partner and I taught each group one of the dances. We taught it progressively. So, for the first session, I taught them (my group) the first half of the dance that only they would be learning. Then for the next session, I taught them the second half of that dance. The third session was spent on understanding the formations that the dance was meant to have and performing according to it. After that, I ensured that they practiced in that formation for a week. That week was majorly spent on trying to perfect the movements in addition to ensuring that everyone was in sync and in formation.Thus, I can successfully say that I have shown initiative and planning in the entire process since I split them up in two separate groups while ensuring that there would be no conflict between the members of the dance so that the dance is not affected and the dancers are able to perform to the best of their abilities. For example: Ensuing that everybody got a group they would feel comfortable and safe in.In the future, I will continue to focus on planning and initiative as there are more formations that have to be created, movements taught and the lighting sorted out.

I also had to consider the ethical implications of my actions while creating the formations. This took a lot of consideration and  planning since the ethics of each decision had to be considered. I was caught between the idea of ensuring that everybody filled a place according to their merit and the idea of ensuring that everybody had a chance to be at the front of the formation.This was a very hard decision for me as above all it was the complex idea of equal opportunity for all and merit based opportunities. Thus, it was quite difficult to come upon a decision. I also had to simultaneously keep in mind that conflicts could arise regarding the positions they were given. Thus, this process involved a bit of ethical decision. I finally arrived on the idea of equal opportunity for all as that is what my moral values dictated. So, I completely based my decision on my values in a way. I was also in conflict with my partner due to this decision as her moral values were for merit based opportunity. We solved this through asking a neutral party who voted for equal opportunity.

Service Exec Second Reflection

After the beginning few sessions, I started planning for the Focus Group workshop regarding the Human rights day events with the focus group officer. During the planning of the workshop we had to send quite a few emails and calendar invites to various people involved in the focus groups. We also had to reach out to a few groups regarding the completion of their goal setting document. Here I was able to utilise my strength of being organised and committed as I was able to successfully plan for the workshop and ensure that all relevant documentation had been completed.

During the workshop, I presented the protocols surrounding the event to the representatives from each focus group. I think that I was able to improve upon the aspect of leading sessions and presenting ideas to people. Alongside I think that I was also able to improve in my interactions with them because I had to frequently go around and speak to them regarding their ideas for the final event. Regardless, I still need to work on leading sessions as I did struggle with answering all of their questions regarding the event even though there were improvements in the manner that I presented all the relevant information to them.

Paper 1 Practice Text 2

The given text is an article published in the “London Review of Books”. It has been written by Gavin Francis. The writer’s primary audience are the readers of the magazine. These readers are likely to be adults and reasonably educated because the article was published in the “London Review of Books”, a literary magazine and because the article makes frequent use of medical terms.It can be said that the secondary audience are other doctors due to the scientific nature of the article. The text has been written from first person point of view and the writer has addressed the reader quite frequently. The text aims to depict the beautiful practice of listening to someone’s heartbeat with the naked ear or with a modern day instrument. The text achieves its purpose by transforming this seemingly mundane practice into a wondrous experience while being scientifically relevant through the use of alternating style shifting between literary terms and explaining the mechanisms behind this practice.

The text presents the practice of listening to someone’s heartbeat seem relevant even in front of modern technology. The writer is able to accomplish this through the use of scientific facts spread throughout the article which portray this practice as being quite evaluative for judging the conditions of a heart and actually useful in the case that only this medium be available.  The writer says,”The first sound is made…as the two largest valves close” The use of scientific terms here provides credibility to the practice. Thus making sure that readers grasp the usefulness of this practice in the world of science. Then the writer says, “The second sound is made by…two other valves”. This statement ensures that readers understand that there is some level of science behind the practice. It also ensures that they comprehend that the practitioners do understand the heart’s conditions by listening to its sound without a stethoscope. Broadly, this may even mean that the readers begin to acknowledge that there may be other such relatively straightforward processes with deep scientific reasonings that they are not aware of. 

Lastly, the text aims to project this practice of listening to the heartbeat with an instrument or just plainly, as a “unique and intimate experience” through the use of personal anecdotes. The author says,  “I was reminded of holding a conch shell as a child, listening to the imagined ocean within”, the use of visual imagery here helps the audience really understand how this is a special experience for the writer which reminded him of his childhood. The use of this personal anecdote here, also evokes nostalgia within the reader. This emotion holds a lot of power and it may push the reader  down the memory lane and reminisce a similar comforting experience, in the process, really understanding how one-of a kind this experience is.  The author’s use of a personal anecdote has helped the reader apprehend that this experience is more about comfort than anything else through ensuring that they relate to him and reflect on their experiences to seek out similar ones. The author also says,” Perhaps it’s the womb… a deep memory of my mother’s pulse.” These words again hit the reader’s emotional side, circling back to the concept of comfort and nostalgia.Overall, then the narration of a personal experience really helps the reader contextualise how this experience feels to him in their own terms.

To conclude, the writer makes use of both scientific facts and emotional appeals through narrations of personal life experiences to convey that listening to someone’s heartbeat is a pleasing experience which is special. Today, we live in a fast paced and technologically advanced world, where there are better listening methods to the listening to someone’s heartbeat method. However, the author’s argument is effective as the reader sees that this practice may be valuable for its credibility as well as its emotional value. The author’s structure and style is decidedly one-of a kind as seldom are there such pieces with equal value given to the scientific as the emotional.

Paper 1 Practice Text 1

Text 1 :Creativity and Academics: The power of an arts education

This text is a blog published on a website called “Edutopia” which displays “key features from New Mexico school of arts”.The blog’s primary target audience is teachers as it is an educational website. The secondary audience are parents. Teachers may come across it as a part of professional development while they are researching for practices for the betterment of their students and parents may come across the blog while researching about the school (New Mexico School of Arts). The text addresses teachers directly at the end of the piece and while it never addresses parents directly, the blurb at the end provides key information about the school, which parents may be interested in if they are looking to enroll their children there. The text’s purpose is to inform its target audience of the benefits of an arts based education primarily, and also promote the school. The text promotes the school using facts and figures at the end of the article and indirectly, by stating that the school supports the arts and then relaying their usefulness. The text challenges dominant discourse by trying to convince the audience that the arts are just as important as academics through the use of empirical and scientific methods and through the narration of personal experiences.

The text tries to influence the audience’s viewpoint of the importance of an arts based education through the narration of personal experiences and emotional appeal which supports the main purpose of the text of relaying the message that the arts are just as important. When the author says,  “I had a student…who would not speak…through the act of making music, she…found her voice and place in life”. The author’s use of a real-life example contextualises the benefits in a real life setting while telling the audience that art helps students discover themselves and grow into individuals with a purpose. Secondly, the author uses emotive language to further persuade the readers of arts’ role in an individual’s life. He does so by saying that “A culture without art isn’t possible”.The use of emotive language here strengthens the view that art may help individuals get in touch with their roots. This is important because many families deem that understanding one’s culture is essential to understanding who one is which in turn is crucial to knowing what is important in one’s life. This links to the concept of having a sense of purpose in life. Overall then the usage of emotional techniques helps strengthen the central claim that the arts are to be emphasised upon because they help individuals grow.

The text also challenges the idea that art is not as important as academics because its benefits cannot be quantified. The writer uses the text’s structure to do so. The text is organised into 5 different parts as if the information were in a list. This gives the overall effect of evidence being collected. This technique helps provide more credibility to the central claim of the text. This is because the arts are usually just associated with being more about emotions than concerning quantifiable data. Thus, the division of the blog provides a “scientific” outlook to the audience and makes the benefits of it seem quantifiable. Although it isn’t explicitly clear, the writer uses the sub-heading to support the view that the arts have scientifically proven benefits by mentioning that it increases “self-confidence and self-understanding…improved cognition”. The words “improved’ and “cognition” create the effect of these statements being proven in a study or something likewise. These words helps challenge the notion that the arts benefits have no measurable impact on an individual, as is usually perceived. Thus, the use of a divisive structure and “science related” words strengthens the evidence aspect of the claim that the arts are not to be considered inferior to academics.

Lastly, the text tries to promote the concerned school throughout the text by talking about the benefits of an arts based education and goes on to say that at the concerned school, a dual curriculum(with art) is followed which helps their students excel in life. There is also a small information section at the end which provides information about the “demographics” of the school, number of students enrolled and the fees of the school. This information helps prospective parents understand the school’s background. The fact that the fees is mentioned strengthens the claim that the secondary purpose of the advert is to promote the school, since parents can firstly decide if they have the means to afford the fees because considering additional factors is not useful without taking this factor into consideration. Looking at this information and by reading the article, parents are more likely to have a positive opinion of the school (since it is a diverse school and supports the arts, which were claimed to be beneficial throughout the article), thus be more likely to enrol their children in this school, which fulfils the article’s objective.

In conclusion, the text engages in the usage of both science and emotional appeals to depict the usefulness of the arts to its target audience- teachers and parents. This text may have been to inform and persuade the audience of the central message that the arts are just as important as academics while also encouraging them to reflect on their thoughts about art and its value. The aim was to influence these thoughts for a more favourable view of art and the New Mexico school of Arts. This piece would be interpreted differently in different contexts. It will be interpreted well in many schools because a lot of continued emphasis is being placed on the arts in this day and age. This is more likely to be the scenario in the places where “western ideology” is followed as opposed to “eastern”.Hence, it will not receive a favourable response from the places following “eastern ideology” as these are places where academics has always superseded the arts.

Hannah Hoch practice paragraphs

“From an ethnographic museum- Abduction of the virgins”

Creativity, art, creativity and the imagination:

Hannah Hoch’s “From an ethnographic museum- Abduction of the virgins” uses the red coloured trees to present a contrast, while communicating a clear message about identity and representation. Hannah Hoch’s strategic placement of the red trees in the background contrasts well against the overall dark blue and the brown statues. This helps the image look aesthetically pleasing to some degree despite the incongruity of the German woman’s face being on the bronze statue. These trees had been taken from an article which referred to them (the trees) as the cure for malaria. The placement of trees here, next to the wooden statue forces the audience to make connections between the two, which ultimately helps establish the fact that the image conveys the view that African regions and diseases go hand in hand. This is in line with the German point of view back then because they thought of the African regions as being unhygienic even the home of diseases. Even though she presents these regions in a bad light through the use of the trees, her intention is to challenge this view, which she accomplishes through the portrayal of an inverted power dynamic between Congo and Germany.

 

Representation, culture, community and identity

Hannah Hoch’s “From an ethnographic museum- Abduction of the virgins”  conveyed the idea of an inversion of the power dynamic between Congo and Germany. The time period that this artwork was created in is also to be considered as it was when Germans thought of their race as being “superior” and looked at all other races with varying levels of disgust. Hannah Hoch presented the inversion through the use of a wooden sculpture from Congo and a German woman’s head. She placed the backwards facing head of the German woman on top of one of the sculpture heads. The resulting image looked quite incongruous but presented important ideas about the treatment of woman in both cultures. As the wooden sculpture was titled “Abduction of the virgins” by a German magazine, it is fair to assume that the magazine thought that the image depicted woman being taken away as sexual assets, which was in line with their thoughts about the culture where the image originated from.However, Hannah Hoch’s strategic placement of the German woman’s head looking backwards re contextualised the image by portraying that Germany was in fact moving backwards in their treatment of woman while Congo was improving (as the other wooden sculptures were facing the front). Secondly, the German woman’s head facing being carried on a wooden statue from Congo could also be representative of the fact that Congo was taking away German assets just as Germany had taken away Congo’s assets forcibly. This is because the image has the effect of the German woman being taken away forcibly. Thus, Hoch’s work introduced the inversion of the existing power dynamic through re contextualisation.