Monday, September 7, 2009
Mallory's First Project Idea Proposal
So I know these first posts are probably going to be confusing and perhaps even inconsistent, but my ideas for the final project are not perfectly in place. As of right now, I know I want to focus on the Freedom Summer of 1964. Because the class is focused on power and words, I thought it would be interesting to bring knowledge of this moment in history to those perhaps unaware of it. I want my creative project to be a collection of interviews and reactions. I wanted to use newspaper articles from the summer of '64 as well as those referring to it from more recent years and use those to evoke emotions or reactions out of those I interview. Part of me wants to do a word-association type conglomeration for my project and then create some kind of chapbook from that. For instance, I may read a passage from an article covering the death of one of the Freedom Summer volunteers in which words like "segregation" or "racism" are used, and ask their first reactions to the passage, what those words make them think, feel, do. My goal is to make some kind of impact through bringing the past and the words used then to the present. I want to educate and hopefully inspire those whom I interview. I would love for any ideas or criticisms on this as well. I have not conducted any interviews, but I hope to start collecting newspaper articles soon in order to begin the process.
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First of all, I want to allay some of your uncertainties about this first post. I think all of us are still fairly in the dark about what we're doing, which is what is so fascinating and mystical about the creative process!
ReplyDeleteYour initial ideas are great, I think that Freedom Summer has a lot of great subject matter. I think it's interesting that you've chosen to go the interview route, as the interviwer/interviewee relationship is a kind of power struggle in itself (something to explore?) Also, do you have a target audience for your interviews? Miami students are so homogeneous, I wonder if you run the risk of getting the same reaction(s).
Additionally, I wonder how your word association might manifest itself in a poem. I wonder, too, if this might turn into a kind of performance piece. You could even record people's reactions on video and create some sort of media presentation based on that.
I think you have a great start here...let me know if you want any help!
You have a good start of what you want as the core of your project. In terms of making it tangible maybe you could record your interviews and present it as a type of song. Meaning: you could have interviews going on with people's thoughts and feelings of the events and then maybe research some songs that were prevalent during the civil rights movement that could also be playing during the piece; songs that show power struggles between blacks or whites. Maybe you could get the script of Down In Mississippi and have sections of that read aloud as well. Sorry, this is all very sporadic but I hope it helps. As soon as I saw what you wanted to do I thought it would be interesting to put all of these elements into some sort of poem/song reading that captures all of the power struggles.
ReplyDeleteHi Mallory,
ReplyDeleteI think you have a lot of interesting material to work with here. I think a collage would create a pretty good glimpse of the violence that occurred during freedom summer. I assume you have done some preliminary research on the topic, because from what it sounds like, this thing is going to entail fairly extensive research (i.e. gathering news clippings and articles on the violence afflicted by the KKK, and even the cops). I think it would definitely be worthwhile for you peruse through miami’s archives. I know we have a ton of resources on our campus
So many people were involved in the campaign, and while accumulating interviews from first-hand victims seems to be your general direction, I am also curious about the particular ways volunteers are/were affected by the things they witnessed. Could you maybe juxtapose the responses of victims with volunteers? How does the language compare, and is there a disparity in the overall conception of what happened? I’m sure there’s all sorts of media you could use in your project. Start thinking about possible media. I also think you should start thinking about your voice, and how you aim to establish it in this piece. How will it specifically come into play?
*I recently read that 37 churches were bombed during freedom summer. This number is staggering.
From what I understand this project will be a collection of interviews highlighting the reactions of current-day Miami students to the events of Freedom Summer, correct?
ReplyDeleteThis means by the end of your data collection you will have a pool of thoughts from students across two generations, the people of 1964 and the people of today. And painting these voices together into one book sounds amazing.
When you mention word association I'm imagining a spliced conversation between the present and the past, lines from the old articles and reports interspersed with thoughts and lines from your interviews. Overlapping on certain words, through repetition or linked word association.
What you might consider, in addition to the chapbook, is an audio production of your finished product. You could have students from our class, yourself includeded, read lines from the 1964 articles. (or perhaps you could even find audio or visual links from this time - talk to Kay Sloan about this, she showed a video on Freedom Summer in our Southern Literature class that was very informative and procative.)
I think an audio presentation would allow you to play more with the splicing and melding of the two voices, two times, and presenting them on loop at the same time as your chapbook would make for a powerful performance piece.
I'm looking forward to seeing this in action! Let me know if you need help - I'd be happy to lend a hand or a voice in my spare time. :)