Text on practice 1st draft by yalou

Gathered material:

Intro text journalistic background:

So the past few years, I have been educated to become a journalist. This process was not all flowers and magic. The journalism world is, in my eyes, not truthful. In this world, we learn how to write and tell stories. How to be objective and how to ask the right questions. We learn to work with deadlines and to write as the reader wants to read it. This commercial side to journalism is significant. Many social media users practice the unique role of a journalist, so how can we keep our profession safe? We have to be attractive. We have to look at what the audience wants. They have to be unique.

I struggled to be the journalist by the book. I saw opportunities in my journalistic practice that would express the stories I wrote so much more. I wanted to combine my journalistic stories with artistic forms. I wanted to tell my journalistic story through visual art.

There were a lot of people (journalists) who disagreed with my ideas. Why would you use these experimental ways to tell a story? We don't understand it? But others saw the opportunities too. And wanted to help me and think along to clarify this process.

A few of my journalistic works are:

• Research on journalism and art

• The spread of covid through the act of eating

• An interactive film installation about plastic pollution in the Northern fulmar (where the audience is the Nothern Fulmar)

• An interactive installation about the cocaïne trading routes from Brazil to Rotterdam

I graduated with a 7, and felt very relieved.

But my practice and voice are far from its development, and I acknowledge that it needs much more shaping and growing.

With my masters, I want to continue as a journalist and grow a critical voice in visual art. Speaking with tutors and other artists shows that I have to learn so much.

"You are very objective."

"How do the stories relate to you as a person?"

"Talk with your work and take time to see everything."

"Search a topic or story that is closer to you."

"Just start creating, and have fun with it."

"You don't need to have the full story, to start creating."

"Do something that you haven't done yet."

So at first I felt very far from being an artist, as Journalism had teach me so many different things. But it also opened up a playground that I always wanted to enter in my journalism studies.

I haven't been here for that long, but I have grown so much and learned so much. A good example is the short film for the Eye.

The Eye Film as the shift

The Eye film for research exhibition:

All first year Lens Based students had to make a short film about a topic of choice. The short film must be 4 minutes or under. The showing is in April.

Idea faces:

From the beginning, I knew I wanted to focus on religion. I felt a strong pull towards it and wanted to dive into that feeling. The first thoughts that came to my mind were munks, nuns, nunnery and monestary. As I felt a certain piece towards these individuals and their work. I know it is, ofcourse, layerd but I did feel appealed towards them. This appealing was not all of a sudden but it had been there for a long time. The influence of television, paintings and written stories were part of it. I connected it to a relaxing and safe feeling. That was the opposite of what I was taught back home. On the other hand, I connected religion and, most of all, God to sunlight. As a young child I thought that if God was here, and real, He must be the sun. I connected God to the sun because that is how he was portraited in my surroundings. As he was not a very present figure in my life. I would see his imaging in old paintings in Museums. I would see his imaging in churches that I would visit on a holiday destination.

After trying to contact different Monasteries and Nunneries, I found out that they were not interested in my project. They were not interested in being filmed or recorded. I could come by and stay in solitary. That was very appealing to me, but not what I was searching for.

In the last week of November and the first week of December I had a family dinner. I told my family about my struggles and processes at school. Than the girlfriend of my brother started talking about her family and her religious background: A Christian family. She herself stepped away from the religious path, but her older sister and brother are still religious. She offered me to ask her sister of I could come to her house and maybe interview her children about religion. And that was the start of a very interesting journey for me. From that moment I opened myself up for religion and the path towards it.

So my idea shifted a bit, but it was the best shift it could have made.

The final film idea:

Interview two young girls about their religion and ask them questions related to my curiosity about God and Jesus. And connect this to my childish visualization of God, my discomfort with religion, and my ignorance towards religion.

Used methods:

There are different stages in the make of this short film:

1. My own effort to learn, and introduce myself to, the Christian religion. I started reading the bible, and I began to go to different churches.
2. Build a band with the young girls. I came by to meet them and play games. I explained to them what the project was about and built a connection with them.
3. Think of a fitting setting to interview the girls in. Reflect on different ways of speaking towards them. A way that is interesting for the film but also a way that the girls feel comfortable in. While answering my interview questions, I choose arts and crafts as a relaxing and exciting activity for the girls.
4. The interview questions. I thought of questions that could be answered by anyone who can use their imagination. The questions needed to be objective. But they were also challenging and could be answered in various ways. *image of the questions*
5. The day of filming.