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An Identity Remix

Photo from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52267/jacob-bastian

Photographed here is my great-great-great-great-great grandfather Jacob Bastian. He was arrested for being a polygamist during the time the Church was practicing polygamy. As often as we try to explain as members of the church that we no longer practice polygamy, I think it is important to recognize that it still affects many of the members of the church today. I decided to add to this photograph to bring it into the present and provide context of why it is significant today. I thought it would be interesting to focus on the perspective of how polygamy benefited my family. Personally, I do not agree with that form of lifestyle, but I have to accept that I would not have been born into this family if polygamy did not exist.

I thought that this was a really interesting assignment. It caused me to analyze my different identities and decide how I could bring it into my art. The constraints of the assignment invited me to be creative and helped guide my choice to pick this picture. I like that this assignment allowed me to make media that has a purpose and is connected to my life. I can easily see how this assignment could be used as a prompt to encourage students to make art that is not only for 'arts sake.'

I used Instagram to edit this photo because I knew I could add text and draw on the picture. I didn't want to post it to my story, so I decided to take a screenshot of it and then crop the photo to make it look more clean and professional.

Comments

  1. EmmaFebruary 24, 2020 at 7:37 PM

    I thought your project/work was awesome! I liked that you took something that is often controversial or taken as something the church is ashamed of and you highlighted the importance of it. You showed how polygamy has its place in our history, regardless of whether we agree with it or not. I loved that you use Instagram because I use it for everything. There's a lot of tools and features that are useful and easy to use, so I totally get you using it and then not posting it. I believe there's a way to save the picture without saving it though, so you could try that next time instead of screenshotting it.

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  2. Katelyn TullisFebruary 27, 2020 at 8:25 PM

    Michael,

    Thanks for being willing to explore a hard topic. I think that this project sort of forces us to explore all parts of ourselves. How might you go about doing a project like this in a theatre classroom? Might you edit it so that students are creating something with their bodies based on their media creations? How would you work to create a safe responding space when students create art about highly opinionated topics?

    Great work!
    Kate

    ReplyDelete

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