Identity Collage
Made by Raisa Chowdhury, Kim Lister and Mauricio Cano
Made by Raisa Chowdhury, Kim Lister and Mauricio Cano
When introducing ourselves, we found that each of us had stories tied somehow to location--particularly our birthplaces, where we were raised, and CMU/Pittsburgh. Each of us also used a picture as our piece of media. To show these ties, then, each of us collected pictures that represented our personal qualities or things that were important to us, and then divided those into two groups depending on whether they related more to our home/birthplace or CMU/Pittsburgh. The former became collages in the shape of our respective states/countries, and the latter were combined into a collage in the shape of a scottie dog because CMU brings us all together.
Created: September 1st, 2014
When introducing ourselves, we found that each of us had stories tied somehow to location--particularly our birthplaces, where we were raised, and CMU/Pittsburgh. Each of us also used a picture as our piece of media. To show these ties, then, each of us collected pictures that represented our personal qualities or things that were important to us, and then divided those into two groups depending on whether they related more to our home/birthplace or CMU/Pittsburgh. The former became collages in the shape of our respective states/countries, and the latter were combined into a collage in the shape of a scottie dog because CMU brings us all together.
The Scotty Dog shape was a smart way of displaying what brings you all together. It's also great how that can branch out to the entire university in that it's a thing that connects us all together.
Very well presented! I like how each of you had your own collage, and also the scottie dog collage that combined pictures from all of you. In this way we could see your differences, but also your similarities.
Focus on CMU was good because it was a common factor between all three people with all of the campus buildings and the shape of the scotty dog. It also showed who the people individually were with the shape of their home states or country. The background might have been a little bit overpowering of the collage, maybe something simpler like a solid white could have worked better. And maybe fewer, bigger pictures.
Definitely appreciate the hard work that goes into stitching so many photos together. But is there someway the presentation can be streamlined? Clearly home means something to all of you, but what? Can your presentation be set up in some way that makes this clear?
We like what you were going for, but we think that maybe your home lives and CMU lives seem very separate. Maybe you could try to combine them more to show that your lives have become more unified since going to CMU? (Amanda and Christina)
I like the idea of focusing on your homes and CMU, but there are too many pictures to look at on first glance. It would be nice if there are focal points in the image, for example some more prominent pictures, to attract more attention.
The layout of three different countries that represent you as individuals and then Scotty as an amalgamation of the "selves" of the members of your group was clean and portrayed clearly. Displaying only pictures that were taken in their particular region was effective in making me see the differences between how the person was portrayed in their country/state of origin and in Pittsburgh.
Maybe with more time, it could make for a more effective presentation if the forms of the countries/states were blended more with the scotty dog. It could be interesting how this blending would inform the piece.
I like the use of formal principles for making the composition and the connection of those chosen principles to what you are trying to communicate. Based on the feedback you have gotten so far how well do you think the form and related communication is working?
The project is well considered - it seems like the group found an excellent representational strategy for mediated representation. While everyone seems to agree that the broad structure and intent of the representation is well formed, there's some division in how well it was executed. There is a lot of information presented - do you think that each 'individual' and the 'group' can be understood with the amount of visual material included? You can disagree with this perspective, but perhaps you might share some thoughts on your rationale for the content included?
Another aspect I think would be useful to discuss is how and why did you choose the images that are included? It mixes objects, group photos, landmarks, etc. Why are they composed using a variety of different styles of photograph and why did you feel it was important to include this diversity of representations rather than one or two illustrative images?
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