A few months ago, myself and the rest of the PLP community here at Seycove began preparing for the winter exhibition. In my grade 8 class, we were tasked with building our part of the exhibition around three different periods of time: the renaissance, medieval times and our current time period.
Iceberg Metaphor
While the end result of this project was of course our first exhibition, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without all building blocks that led up to it. This reminds me of the iceberg metaphor that PLP students are always learning about. This metaphor talks about how most people will only ever see and appreciate the little bit of the iceberg that stays above the water, in this case the exhibition, but so much more of the iceberg lives underwater, and most people never see that part. In our case some of the work that happened underwater was the power play post.
Power Play
In many ways, this project is just a deeper dive into the power play project. For example, in the power play project, we made a medieval portrait of ourselves, including aspects of worldview from medieval and modern times. We then made another portrait, this time with Renaissance and modern worldview. I also posted a version of the paragraph I made to explain the Renaissance art. Finally, we made another piece of art, this time including 4-5 of our group members, and props we created for the live action version.
Time
This project made me think so much about the concept of time. I enjoyed incorporating different worldviews of time into all the portraits but also I thought about how time affects us now. It’s so crazy to think about how humans invented time and how it’s not really real but also how much it controls our lives.
Time was a huge part of the day of the exhibition. It affected us when were setting up, and when we were performing in the exhibition itself, it affected us when we were cleaning up, and when we were waiting between rounds. It made us more rushed, or tired, annoyed, excited or nervous or angry. Can you imagine what our lives would look like if time was not something we could rely on? And worry about?
Time was represented in every part of this project. At the very beginning, when we worked on the power play project, I represented time in my Medieval portrait with an analog clock and a clock tower. I chose both of these pieces to represent how the way we perceived time has evolved and changed. Next, in my Renaissance portrait, I used a clock from the Renaissance times to represent time. Back then, people had just began to invent and use the clock.
A Sundial
Clocks have been evolving for thousands of years, and will probably continue to evolve forever. I cannot even imagine what clocks and time will look like in a thousand years. Maybe we’ll have a clock built into our bodies? Maybe we’ll go back to telling time depending on where the sun is? Maybe we will be time traveling!
The sun dial was invented in the 100’s, and was most likely the first time any kind of clock was invented. In the 520’s, the candle clock was invented, and it was followed by the hour glass in the 1330’s. The weight clock in the 1280’s was the first mechanical clock, and it was invented in Milan Italy. From there, more precise clocks were invented, making time more accessible and reliable everyone.
Everything around us is always changing, from life in high school, to how clocks have changed overtime. We will never know exactly what to expect from the future, but whatever it is, I’m excited.q
