What Lies Beneath The Tip of The Iceberg
Recently I presented a three part tableau to the public in the PLP winter exhibition. I noticed that the exhibition was our way to show our final neat product, and leave all of the stressful, hard work in the past.
What is a Winter Exhibition?
These past months, all of Seycove PLP has been working very hard to put together the Winter exhibition. The Winter Exhibition is a way PLP can showcase our work to the public in a creative and interesting way.
Tableau
For this exhibition, my four group members and I were tasked with creating a tableau that displays an aspect of the medieval worldview, an aspect of the renaissance worldview, and an aspect of the contemporary worldview. After several long months of learning, working, and revising, I have come through and created and presented a tableau I am truly proud of.
Medieval Artwork
Leading up to making our tryptic, was a lot of researching and working. The first step to every aspect was learning about that time period, and then creating my own artwork featuring me with aspects of the medieval worldview. My art piece displays the medieval worldview and what it was like to live back then, learning and knowing this shows me how many things learned and invented in the medieval times are the bases of everything we know and use today. My artwork shows a portrait of me surrounded by many different parts of the medieval worldview. For example, I added a boat to show how people got around to fight in wars. Creating this gave me a way better understanding of the medieval worldview. It also gave me important iPad skills, I learned how to navigate and use an app called SuperImposeX which helped me put everything into one canvas.
Renaissance
The Renaissance was the second time period I researched and created about. For my individual art, I created a piece that stars me, and showcases several parts of the renaissance worldview. I found creating this much easier than making the medieval art piece because I had already practiced how to use SuperImposeX. In creating this, I learned much more about the worldview of people in the renaissance. I am very proud of this piece because I believe I did a very good job at putting my face into the artpeice, I can see my face but at the same time it looks like renaissance artwork. If I were to do this again I would find a better sun, when making the artworks, its very hard to find a good renaissance art that is easy to remove the background, and that is free to use.
Creating The Tryptic
When making the digital tryptic, I worked with my group to make three more art pieces displaying the Medieval, Renaissance, and Contemporary worldview, however, these ones are featuring all five of us. For all three art pieces of the tryptic, we used the same mountain and ocean background, because a tryptic has three parts that relate to each other in some visual way. While making this, I learned a lot more about the medieval, renaissance, and contemporary worldview while collaborating with my peers to make the group piece. If I would to create this tryptic again I would take way more time blending the faces into the art because when we made it, it was rushed and not done very realistic.
Getting it Ready to Present
After creating the digital part of the tryptic we needed to turn it into something we can present. We were tasked with making live art. We had to make each aspect of our tryptic into a tableau. First, we needed to assign each group member a part in each tableau. Then, we had to make props, costumes, and a setting. This was the trickiest part for me because this was the part we were showing to the public and the thing that catches their eye, so I really wanted to do a good job and make good quality props. After that came the hours and hours of practising and dress rehearsals.
After doing this first rehearsal, we learned a lot of things we could improve, we had to make the scripts shorter, me and Cole ended up switching places because he was the only one who could fit in our phone, and we had to find a way to change into our costumes faster, we did this by layering them on top of each other so we only had to take clothes off instead off and on. If I were to change anything, I would make the props better quality because they ended up kind of falling apart in the end which made it difficult to move fast during the exhibition.
My Experience of The Exhibition
This was my first exhibition…so how did it go? The exhibition was a very long, stressful and tiring yet rewarding day. All of the grade 8 groups set up their tableaux in the gym after school, and then two and a half short hours passed, and the people started walking in. The first few times we presented to the public were a little messy, but in the end we were masters. If I were to change anything about how we did the exhibition, I would change how we organized back stage. It was very messy and cluttered and it was very hard to find everything when we were doing the quick set changes. This exhibition taught me how they work, there is going to be a lot of exhibitions throughout my PLP journey, and knowing the scene and how it works will help me be less nervous for future ones.
This is our Renaissance art work,
We displayed economy as well as beliefs by two people trading, people traded to acquire things they needed which controlled the economy back then. Our economy has evolved since then, both in positive and negative ways.
Society and values are shown by the king colonizing the globe with force, to show who ran the society and how. Now some are still healing from the forceful colonization they did back then.
To show geography we added a Renaissance boat to show how people travelled around to colonize countries and to explore the world, we have taken and evolved this boat to make it what we have today.
Finally, this is our art that is based on our world view now
We added a big phone with social media on it to represent society, social media is a big part in most of our lives, it holds a lot of power over us and is a big source for a lot of information we learn now a days.
We also have our cruise ship representing geography and how people use boats to get around and away.
The Christmas tree is representing beliefs and how even though a lot of us aren’t Christian, a lot of our lives are still effected by the religion because we have a western worldview, for example, a lot of us celebrate Christian holidays, like Christmas.
Enjoy and treat yourself to a candy cane on the way out
What Lies Beneath The Tip of The Iceberg
Before the exhibition, the teachers were talking about how they are like an ice berg. The tip of the ice berg is the thing that people see when they come and look at our work, and the bottom of the ice berg (the part in the ocean) is all of the working, learning, late nights, stress, messiness, etc of the exhibition. This statement is exactly accurate, preparing for the exhibition is not a very fun time, it is a lot of hard and stressful work, but finishing it and showing the interesting fun part to the public makes me feel very proud of myself and my group.
Renaissance Inventions Window Notes
One of the things that really helped me understand the driving question (Why does the past matter to us today?) was the window notes I made in class about some of the really important inventions made in the Renaissance. We read passages about the printing press, the first medical tools and hospitals, and the first drafts of time. While exploring these we had to take notes in the format of ‘window notes’ which is just 4 boxes, one for Facts, one for Feelings and reactions, on for questions and one for connections. These helped me answer the driving question because it showed me how the people in the past made the beginning of everything we use now a days.
Chinggis Khan Musical
Another thing that really help me understand how the past matters to us today is researching about Chinggis Khan and making a musical about him. Chinggis was a very harsh leader in the medieval times, he would go around the globe and conquer countries for his Mongolian empire. While doing this he taught peace to the countries which we have taken and learned from today.
Why Does The Past Matter to us Today?
After finishing this very long project, I have learned a lot about the past and how it matters to us today and finally came to a conclusion. The past was the time of learning, experimenting, and growing. They are the ones who paved the original path that we walk and grow on today. They thought up some version of everything they we use now a days. Their inventions are what made it possible for us to continue growing, experimenting and learning.
