Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ps161

“remember pt. 2” hypocrisy at its best ignores everything that doesn’t serve an ideology or hoarding power p.s. #ps161 #poetry #poem #saveTheWorldWithPowerfulEmpathy #defeatTheAssholes #bmore #bmorewrites #baltimore #baltimoreWrites #writerscommunity #writerslife #creativewriting #prose #spilledink #poemsofinstagram #poetryofinstagram #writersofinstagram #poetrysociety #poetrycommunity #poetryaddict https://www.instagram.com/p/CSZghbErEZI/?utm_medium=tumblr

I’ve been sorely MIA but that’s because travel time from Amherst to Brooklyn while keeping up with class/home work can get a little exhausting. Also, a bunch of copyright laws means I can’t share the things I’ve been working on. But now that Spring Break is over (and I am 3.5 weeks from the publication of Dare to Remember: A Digital Memorial of Black Brooklyn, but who’s counting) I have a little time to debrief.

My trips home have composed of coordinating times to meet with volunteers for the photo/ virtual reality series, actually getting to all the sites in Brooklyn on time, photographing and videoing the area using a DSLR and 360 camera, rescheduling time to meet with people to do all of the above, and work with the kiddies of PS161 as a workshop for the larger impact I want my thesis to actually make. (woo! deep breaths!) Because of the copyright issue, I can’t share much of the aforementioned but the second portion of the photo/ VR series with the kids was a complete joy. Just the pure excitement when I show students of color and a predominately black class how to weave their knowledge of the digital sphere (photography and virtual reality) with history through my project, has been rewarding. Due to their exposure of photography and the burgeoning role of VR in games, explaining virtual reality to them was relatively easy. They were blown away by the Samsung 360 camera, the Google Camera and Cardboard, and the images that could be made and seen from these.

Our first class included understanding the significance of black institutions. These include everything from churches and barbershops to street signs and parks. We then spoke about who decides these symbols of memory and which histories are considered worthy of commemoration. Soon after, we listed numerous products and symbols of the digital sphere (computers, television, iPads and iPhones, Playstation, etc.), and in the middle of the Venn Diagram we spoke on the term, Afrofuturism, and how our project lies at the center of history and technology. We honed in on one of the sites for the photo series, Borough Hall, where Brooklyn’s Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) dumped the trash from predominately black neighborhoods on the steps of the building as protest against the failure to have regular and proper sanitation in their neighborhoods in 1962. We discussed this site as one that preceded other places they were familiar from #BlackLivesMatter protests and how they were inextricably connected. And lastly, we named it our destination for the field trip where they will photograph the building and participate in my larger photo series.

Our second class, the second portion of the photo/ VR series, consisted of a micro version of our outing to the Borough Hall, where students took photographs and created VR images of their favorite places in the school building that tell stories of their time in the school. Before their mini-trips around the school, we discussed where those places were and why they were important to them and soon after, they set out on their chaperone-free voyage through The Crown School. Short on phones, I asked Mr. Porter to pick group leaders so for each phone, there were three students. Though not all students perfected the 360 degree image due to various factors like the movement of their peers (I tried to tell them to Mannequin Challenge with the video but my students were a bit excited) or the people around them not giving their consent to be photographed, my students were still enthralled by the potential of the technology. Faster than even me, these kids soon found out that they could look at the saved images on the Google Cardboard Camera app and even access YouTube 360 videos. That way, students whose phones were incompatible with the Cardboard apps could still use their Cardboard headsets. At a time where I was worried that there would not be enough phones, or just generally anxious about the timeline of the activity, I helped further the connection between documenting the past through innovations of the present and possibly future. Mr. Porter drove that lesson home when he discussed how much “you don’t take photos just to take photos” or “photography class isn’t just about point and shoot.” He explained that it also heavily rests on what makes a great image and experience, and what those photos signify and could potentially be used for in the future.

This project expands black history beyond what we know of the South while determining how photography and virtual reality the social and physical landscape of Brooklyn has changed. And it all comes to life in the class! From providing cost effective resources to produce virtual reality as a mechanism to reimagining how we can commemorate our histories through the digital production, these classes have been so pivotal to my thesis. It has reproduced my work on a smaller, more digestible way for younger students while still incorporating the students into my larger project. And very intriguingly, in a world where there is so much exposure to digital products marketed to these children for mass consumption, this project focuses on producing these things for themselves.

So a special shoutouts to Mr. Porter’s fifth grade photography class. I could not have asked for better students or greater tech savvy minds. And I can’t wait until we bring all that we learned in the classroom outdoors on May 31st!