On the edge of a digital revolution the ways that we get and receive information are constantly changing. But one thing remains constant, our history, or does it? How do we see ourselves? Our histories? Re-mapping Our (his)Stories is a project that changes our perceptions of history by using multi-media representations of history through physical installation and online archive to change the way that we look at history. Allowing ourselves to see the patterns and cycles in histories so that we can build together for a better future.
Re-Mapping Our (his)Stories is a collection of stories, a preservation of lives and a reconstruction of histories. Untold stories posses the power to analyze, restructure and overthrow the systems that hold us captive. Through work running youth programming, academic research and personal, artistic reflection I will be creating a multi-media installation as well as an online collaborative community archive. The two products are mirrors of themselves one occupying physical space and the other occupying digital space, both seeking to understand the relationship between time and space and asking the question, what happens when we attempt to map time.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Feminist Media
Video Created during the Feminist Media Workshop as part of the Make/Shift RecLAmation Tour's stop in Amherst MA!
October 18th, 2010.
For more on Make/Shift RecLAmation - http://www.makeshiftreclamation.com/
The event was co-sponsored by the Feminist United Collective, Queer Community Alliance, Trans/Genderqueer Student Alliance and the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College.
Thoughts on Feminism - a work in process
When I was a child I had a Barbie that I played with topless. My mother and aunt jokingly named her Michigan Barbie. Years later I stumbled on pictures of topless women in the 80s outside, somewhere. When confronted my mother explained they that was the Michigan Womyns Festival. Years later I heard the hilariously different versions of the time that my mother and aunt “accidentally” carpooled to the festival together. This is the association I grew up with to the Michigan Womyns Festival, tangled into the other stories of the women in my family, my mom and my aunt, feminists. I felt it like a legacy I was receiving and at the same time confusion with my own gender pushes me away from these definitions and associations with feminism.
When I arrived in college I was told a different narrative of Michigan. A transphobic space of rejection, not solidarity, told I would find myself more at home at Camp Trans. Michigan Womyns Festival became synonymous in this academic setting with the problems of 2nd wave feminism, no longer a place for me in the world that pushed me towards the third wave or no wave. I learned of 2nd wave feminism, and more generally feminism as an old wave, the movement of an older generation.
It is impossible for me to separate my work as an activist video maker from my experience growing up female bodied, white, Jewish, child of feminists, in a feminist synagogue. But when it came to my own personal identification this was never a term that I chose to use for myself.
As I form and examine the methodology of my current project I have come to realize just how much the 2nd wave feminist movement influences the core of my work. The lens through which I learned and have found myself to study oral history is through a feminist lens, examining the ways in which the personal is political, a crucial value of 2nd wave feminism.
Throughout my time at Hampshire I have found my work revolving around questioning the patriarchy, capitalism, and the systems of oppression they perpetuate. My work as an activist media maker is always anti-patriarchy and when it comes down to it I find myself drawn to that term more than to the term feminist. And yet, I feel, understand and know the pull towards feminism within my work. My current project centers around the concept of (his)Story, taking the ‘his’ out of history.
On Monday October 18th I partnered with Food For Thought Books in Amherst, and the Center for Feminisms, Queer Community Alliance, Trans Student Alliance, Feminist United Collective and Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College to bring the Make/Shift Reclamation tour to Amherst for an afternoon workshop and evening performance. We spent the day in conversation with ourselves and each other dealing with the issues of contemporary feminism, what does that word mean and how does it influence our work? It was a good conversation, one that makes you think, that draws out the ideas that we have all been struggling with. The next day, as I was driving home after dropping the performers off at the train station to catch a train back to New York and continue with the tour I was texted by my 12 year old cousin, spurring an attempted conversation about what feminism is, opening up conversation on multiple levels in different spaces.
M- what show?
H- it was called make/shift reclamation
M- what it about?
H- feminism
M- it about friends?
H- what do you mean?
M- the show is about friends?
The moment she asked me if feminism was about friends (I believe she read it as friendinism) I realized the importance of my not brushing off this aspect of my life. Through the nature of my work I have often been forced to face the hipocracies within my life, if I advocate space for youth empowerment then who am I to shut my relatives, specifically, cousins, out of these conversations because they are not my intended audience. I want to teach them the values of the work that I do but this relationship is easily strained by family relationships. Knowing that I could not just dismiss this conversation I was then faced with the question, how do I explain feminism to this 12 year old?
to be continued…
When I arrived in college I was told a different narrative of Michigan. A transphobic space of rejection, not solidarity, told I would find myself more at home at Camp Trans. Michigan Womyns Festival became synonymous in this academic setting with the problems of 2nd wave feminism, no longer a place for me in the world that pushed me towards the third wave or no wave. I learned of 2nd wave feminism, and more generally feminism as an old wave, the movement of an older generation.
It is impossible for me to separate my work as an activist video maker from my experience growing up female bodied, white, Jewish, child of feminists, in a feminist synagogue. But when it came to my own personal identification this was never a term that I chose to use for myself.
As I form and examine the methodology of my current project I have come to realize just how much the 2nd wave feminist movement influences the core of my work. The lens through which I learned and have found myself to study oral history is through a feminist lens, examining the ways in which the personal is political, a crucial value of 2nd wave feminism.
Throughout my time at Hampshire I have found my work revolving around questioning the patriarchy, capitalism, and the systems of oppression they perpetuate. My work as an activist media maker is always anti-patriarchy and when it comes down to it I find myself drawn to that term more than to the term feminist. And yet, I feel, understand and know the pull towards feminism within my work. My current project centers around the concept of (his)Story, taking the ‘his’ out of history.
On Monday October 18th I partnered with Food For Thought Books in Amherst, and the Center for Feminisms, Queer Community Alliance, Trans Student Alliance, Feminist United Collective and Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College to bring the Make/Shift Reclamation tour to Amherst for an afternoon workshop and evening performance. We spent the day in conversation with ourselves and each other dealing with the issues of contemporary feminism, what does that word mean and how does it influence our work? It was a good conversation, one that makes you think, that draws out the ideas that we have all been struggling with. The next day, as I was driving home after dropping the performers off at the train station to catch a train back to New York and continue with the tour I was texted by my 12 year old cousin, spurring an attempted conversation about what feminism is, opening up conversation on multiple levels in different spaces.
M- what show?
H- it was called make/shift reclamation
M- what it about?
H- feminism
M- it about friends?
H- what do you mean?
M- the show is about friends?
The moment she asked me if feminism was about friends (I believe she read it as friendinism) I realized the importance of my not brushing off this aspect of my life. Through the nature of my work I have often been forced to face the hipocracies within my life, if I advocate space for youth empowerment then who am I to shut my relatives, specifically, cousins, out of these conversations because they are not my intended audience. I want to teach them the values of the work that I do but this relationship is easily strained by family relationships. Knowing that I could not just dismiss this conversation I was then faced with the question, how do I explain feminism to this 12 year old?
to be continued…
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Re-Mapping Data References
This is an online album of screen shots of other web-based tools for data-mapping and visualization, I would like to create something along the lines of these tools.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Fundraising Update
So far I have raised roughly $650 dollars to go towards the completion of this project!
This is great! I could not have done it without everyone who helped me along the way. Over the weekend my indiegogo fundraising campaign ended. It was no big deal, I barely noted the occasion. I realized a while ago that I was not going to meet my goal, but I am satisfied with the results of the campaign and the money I have right now.
The original project budget (the dream budget) is about $4,600, however, there will be ways for me to continue if this goal is not met. For one, I have started finding deals on items, such as the projector that was found by technical director, EJ, that only costs $100 instead of the originally projected $300. Additionally I expect that as time unfolds I will find other ways to trim the budget. My current barebones budget lies at $1100 and I believe that goal is easily do-able and I feel confident that I will not only meet it but exceed it.
I have also begun applying for grant funding from sources such as the Social Venture Fund at Hampshire College and Do Something, and organization that donates seed money to many youth produced projects regularly. In the near future I will continue to apply for grants as they come up.
ALSO RIGHT NOW the project is entered in the FACT Social Justice Competition:
http://www.netsquared.org/projects/re-mapping-our-hisstories
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE become a fan of the project and support this work! There are many benefits if my project does well in this contest such as consultations and funding for the project (that could potentially fund the project in full!)
Soon I will move the online fundraising component of my project to LongTail, a crowdfunding site promoting socially minded projects. While the website is still in it's beta form it will be going fully live soon and I am excited to be working with the founders of the site to host and promote the Re-Mapping Our (his)Stories project.
I want to thank everyone for helping/participating in this project so far! There is SO much more to come!
-Helyx
This is great! I could not have done it without everyone who helped me along the way. Over the weekend my indiegogo fundraising campaign ended. It was no big deal, I barely noted the occasion. I realized a while ago that I was not going to meet my goal, but I am satisfied with the results of the campaign and the money I have right now.
The original project budget (the dream budget) is about $4,600, however, there will be ways for me to continue if this goal is not met. For one, I have started finding deals on items, such as the projector that was found by technical director, EJ, that only costs $100 instead of the originally projected $300. Additionally I expect that as time unfolds I will find other ways to trim the budget. My current barebones budget lies at $1100 and I believe that goal is easily do-able and I feel confident that I will not only meet it but exceed it.
I have also begun applying for grant funding from sources such as the Social Venture Fund at Hampshire College and Do Something, and organization that donates seed money to many youth produced projects regularly. In the near future I will continue to apply for grants as they come up.
ALSO RIGHT NOW the project is entered in the FACT Social Justice Competition:
http://www.netsquared.org/projects/re-mapping-our-hisstories
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE become a fan of the project and support this work! There are many benefits if my project does well in this contest such as consultations and funding for the project (that could potentially fund the project in full!)
Soon I will move the online fundraising component of my project to LongTail, a crowdfunding site promoting socially minded projects. While the website is still in it's beta form it will be going fully live soon and I am excited to be working with the founders of the site to host and promote the Re-Mapping Our (his)Stories project.
I want to thank everyone for helping/participating in this project so far! There is SO much more to come!
-Helyx
Monday, October 4, 2010
First Day with Teen Leadership Seminar! Introduction to Community History - I Am From
On October 3rd I had the first session of Re-Mapping Our (his)Stories with the youth at the Teen Leadership Seminar at Mishkan Shalom Synagogue in Philadelphia! The session was great. Below is the product of the session, a collaborative 'I am From' Poem:
Re-Mapping Our (his)Stories: The First Weekend, Project into Practice
On October 2nd I held the Philadelphia premier screening of El Trompo, the documentary created through the Midnight Media Coup as part of The Trek Project. The screening was a success, the event served as a promotional event and fundraiser for the Re-Mapping Our (his)Stories Project. During the screening I raised $160 dollars for the project, bringing the grand total up to $650!
After the movie was finished everyone at the screening was given a chance to paint a collaborative world map on the screen where we had just finished watching the movie. Below are pictures of the event:
After the movie was finished everyone at the screening was given a chance to paint a collaborative world map on the screen where we had just finished watching the movie. Below are pictures of the event:
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