Critical and Creative Thinking
One of the core objectives of IAS that emphasizes the interdisciplinary aspect of my major is the ability to combine and develop your critical and creative thinking. Students who meet this objective should be able to learn how to identify assumptions, work out how those assumptions inform results, assess multiple perspectives, with an eye to understanding why and how they differ, and developing the capacity to engage in controversy productively.
My very first class of my first quarter at UW was essentially an experimental print design course. As an artist I often stick to traditional techniques and try to avoid things like graphic design as I see it continuing to develop as an oversaturated field with few truly talented and innovative designers. However, this class altered my perspective on what could be done in the medium. I was not only uplifted to see artists challenging the form but also I was exposed to so many different perspectives from historical art theorists to avant-garde zine content. Being able to have that experience began to transform my understanding of design; and I was inspired with critical and creative energy to create a project that spoke to challenging the limitations and taboos of design while making an aesthetic and emotional statement. I designed a six page, experimental art-zine inspired spread. The foundation of each page was a scan of hand written love letters. Stacked tightly on top of those are letters themselves. The use of a bold, black traditional serif font is a love letter to typography in and of itself. Following that, the design lends itself to illegibility; not only deceiving the viewer into an illiteracy, an inability to make sense of the page they are seeing, also obscuring the very base that the words appear on. The spread is the epitome of confusion, of an inability to communicate, of misunderstanding, which is so common in love, relationships and rebellion. Not to mention that the spread breaks every rule of what constitutes “good design”. I used this complex conceptual piece to make a societal statement on what art is, which to me is the most obvious intersection of critical and creative thinking you can create.
Another example of my work that intersects critical and creative thinking was a short documentary film that I made with a small team about the impact of the current political administration on long-term environmental damage policy as well as showing the varying level of education and information on the topic that members of the general public had. This was a great experience in developing my critical and creative thinking because I had the opportunity to synthesize the information I had learned earlier on climate change and environmental concern and apply it to a creative documentary film project. I also valued the long interviews that I took with our participants during recording because their differing perspectives were enlightening to my understanding of how people think about complicated political issues and direct their actions and votes. The film project was an artistic and interesting way to approach the controversial political landscape and differing opinions on a battleground topic.
Collaboration and Shared Leadership
Working collaboratively within the UW school of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences was a personally transformative experience. I consider myself to be most successful when working independently and feel a strong urge to have full control and ownership over the quality of everything that I do. Therefore, when I found out that collaboration and shared leadership was a core objective of IAS I was extremely wary, just hoping that the other students I encountered would be willing to match my level of commitment and quality. Adhering to this objective meant that I needed to be able to work and function as a group with my peers, think critically about our projects and assignments, generate new and original ideas to address our goals, and deal with any ramifications of our collective decision making.
My first significant experience with collaboration at UW came when I began writing a community-based social research proposal to study ecovillages’ impact on social psychology and life satisfaction. This assignment consisted of a ten page research and funding proposal including our timeline, budget, methodology, positionality, review of relevant literature, and cultural context of topic. I was grouped with three other peer contributors, which meant the added challenge of creating continuity and flow with four different author’s writing style within the same document. We faced many obstacles throughout this project, including the complete lack of any contribution from one team member. Over the months that we worked on the proposal this member stopped coming to meetings, classes, or communicating with the group. This forced myself and another contributor to take a shared leadership position and shoulder the surplus of responsibilities. While this experience was challenging and frustrating at times, I am truly proud of the finished product as well as the common ground we were able to find within the group. The difficult situation primed an environment where we were able to utilize our available members’ strengths and diversity to develop our best possible work. Our completed proposal presentation went exceptionally well and we received perfect marks despite the conflict we battled throughout and for that I am very proud of my group and myself.
Ultimately, the most valuable collaborative experiences I had at UW were curating. I had the opportunity to curate and organize multiple installations, exhibitions, and festivals at the University during the two years that I studied there. A prime example of that would be the show Urban Disguise which I curated at the INCA Gallery Seattle in April 2017. The show featured six local artists who created or submitted works for the space around the conceptual interpretation of masks. I loved creating my painting for the exhibit, and curating in this way was an interesting contrast to the performance art festival because of the amount of leadership I had to exhibit and arranging with so many of my teams, from the artists I contacted to the marketing representatives. It was an extremely valuable opportunity in my undergraduate experience to put the collaborative skill I’ve been developing to use for a large project in my desired field and I wouldn’t give that up for anything.
Diversity and Equity
Being able to live and work within and across diverse communities is an integral skill to have in contemporary society. It is of no shock that the school of IAS names this as one of its core learning objectives. Working with diversity and intersecting identities is key to your education and understanding of historically-marginalized groups’ lived experiences, creative expressions, and intellectual perspectives. Without a focus in diversity and equity any collegiate program would lack the ability to teach students to recognize the historical and cultural relationship between power, knowledge, and difference especially in today’s political climate.
One of my first experiences with a diversity and equity directed course was in Women, Culture, and Development studying women living and working in the third world. This was a challenging and interesting course for me. It was an eye-opening experience to study the way largely constructed structures and institutions intersect socially, politically, and economically to continue the marginalization of girls and women. To be able to not only be in an environment where my peers and faculty are so passionate about the topic, but also synthesize and apply the ideas we were covering into my own writing and work was invaluable. I wrote a number of feminist theory papers covering issues from colonialism, to poverty, and globalization to women’s embodied experiences of politics, the economy, and culture. As a woman myself I feel that it is imperative that any and every student at UW should take a variety of course covering topics of diversity and marginalized groups.
Another example of my experience with diversity and equity at UW came while I studied the Black Lives Matter movement among other social and political groups to inform and direct a durational performance art piece that I did with a group of two other girls. As part of my Global Agitation course we participated in our own 10 hour silent protest which was filmed and documented while we took turns carrying a sign with a quote that read “The work is bigger than us.” I sourced this quote from Patrisse Cullors who is an artist, organizer, freedom fighter, public speaker, and the Cofounder of Black Lives Matter and founder of Dignity and Power Now. She is an extremely inspirational and influential figure to me and millions of others. While I was already familiar with the powers of hegemony and injustice that marginalized groups face from some of my previous coursework, it was a completely different experience to apply this knowledge of difference and power as an artist to my work. I realized how truly important it is to understand and assume the role of the artist in agitating cultural norms, questioning dominant hegemony, and finding political relevance within global social movement.
Interdisciplinary Research and Inquiry
Over my time at UW I have engaged in multiple interdisciplinary research projects. Undergraduate research is a huge part of the learning objectives for IAS. Research-based assignments are present in almost every course, and students must learn to develop research questions, pursue them with appropriate sources and methods, and present results to the intended audience. The two largest and most significant research projects that I have done in IAS are a community-based research grant proposal and my cultural psychology research thesis.
The first example of my research and inquiry work came early during my undergrad at UW. I wrote a community-based social research grant proposal with a very small team to study ecovillages’ impact on social psychology and life satisfaction. It was an extremely enriching process having to balance leadership, collaboration, and the research and writing process. That experience ultimately led me to volunteering at the 2017 Water Is Life un(Conference). Our proposal consisted of all necessary research and sections including budget of funding, literature reviews, timeline, methodology, address of authorial positionality, and proposed research and action plan.
Another example of the research I conducted at UW was my final thesis paper for Dr. Stewart’s cultural psychology course. My paper was on residential and relational mobility and their effects on interpersonal relationship formation and the self. Since the ideology of this course focused on culture my inquiry, research, and writing was a cross-cultural comparison of these psychological effects in Asia and North America. I did find that there was significant difference due to the cultural divide between independent and interdependent societies and that the psychological effects of residential and relational mobility may extend beyond preference and the superficial within both cultures.
Currently I am in the midst on an undergraduate research independent study in which I am developing a series of oil paintings addressing societal expectation.
All of these projects easily demonstrate my ability to ask relevant and unique research inquiry questions as well as follow through appropriately. I did publicly present my findings for each and spoke on my intention and discovery during the process. It was important to me to choose to research things that came from separate disciplines but that I still cared deeply about and could apply to my personal work. This made sure that I could position my work in relation to other research literature and methods of inquiry as well as diverse social contexts.
Writing and Communication
The final learning objective of the school of IAS is the ability for students to develop their writing and communication skills. In order to produce quality writing as a student or professional you must have an awareness of the relationship between purpose, audience, author, and context. They also must use a range of evidence to develop ideas or support claims within their writing. Having well developed writing as well as a flexibility of style is essential for proper communication in any academic or career-oriented setting.
I have done a wide variety of writing at the University of Washington from scholarly research papers on psychology, gender, race, hegemony, and the environment to writing informational marketing materials for events. The most valuable writing experiences I have had at UW were while I curated my performance and art exhibitions. To be successful as an artist or curator in contemporary society it is essential that you develop strong writing and communication skills in order to translate the conceptual foundation of your work as well as be able to market and interact with clients effectively. Therefore, when I was presented with the opportunity to curate, I knew that came with the added responsibility of being able to clearly write and communicate curatorial and artist statements. I wrote curatorial statements for all of the Between Strangers installations as well as the project as a whole. That writing was selected by my faculty to be reprinted and distributed to all the students in my course as well as every passer-by and participant in the installations during the respective performance art festival. I also have written and compiled artist statements for myself as well as other local artists. Very recently I wanted to challenge myself as a writer and decided to develop an experimental poem inspired by the works in Gurlesque (2010) to accompany my avant-garde graphic design spreads.
One more example of my writing and communication skill is an analytical essay on German historical documentary film that I wrote as part of a class assignment this year. My paper consisted of a comparative analysis of Triumph of the Will (1935) and Night & Fog (1956). After grading our work my professor decided to read my essay aloud to every student in my class asking them to compare the quality of their work to mine. While I don’t know if I agree with that decision and don’t feel that my writing should be used to devalue other’s work, I do have to be flattered that he felt so passionately about my work, calling it the best essay he has read since beginning his teaching career. I feel that this instance as well as the others talked about above, prove my proficiency and ability to write and communicate effectively by the standards of the school of IAS.