project proposal lula

sequental recut project proposal lula hawkins Whenever I’m asked to consider a historical event for art projects I really only gravitate toward events that I feel have affected me, my loved ones, or anyone in my life. I guess i haven’t really tried it but I have a hard time feeling passion about things that haven’t come up in my life, of course in terms of research, writing, etc. I want to learn about other historical events but for an art project, I feel like it needs to be somewhat personal. What comes up for me a lot are events around the American opi- oid crisis and how it has manifested over time. I think looking at that for my sequential recut project would work well when considering the genesis of the crisis, vs. what it is now, different stages, differ- ent parts of the country affected. And how something that started before I was born affected me so acutely as i came into adulthood, and as a reaction to this, knowing that statistically, i will continue to be affected by it. my first idea was to create a video that contained newsreel clips, videos from the 90s/early 2000s on the subject and intercut it with videos from maybe my childhood or growing up in berkeley, leading up to when i graduated high school. I think that using my high school graduation as a culmination point for this timeline is important to me. I don’t think i want to use video or a digital medium because it’s not really something that i feel inter- ests me or communicates how i feel about things very much. I’m kind of stuck on what i want to do but i have some ideas. My other idea is always to do something including physical photos - but i feel hindered by the print- ing capabilities at school. you can’t print anything really nicely and i can’t afford to get prints made anywhere else. I kind of have this vision of a bunch of framed photos set up together as they would be on a mantel- piece, framing things like my high school diploma and senior portraits of loved ones but then also including i guess physical forms of whatever news stuff /pharmaceutical advertisements i was think- ing about. I also do think that that’s kind of macabre but i literally cant seem to draw on anything else or really feel strongly about other historical events. I don’t know honestly it feels like a bummer to me but i keep getting projects that involve personal and impersonal history and i can’t seem to get off of this subject.

earlier this year i wrote a research paper on the same subject so i feel that i have pretty in depth informa- tion about why and when the opioid crisis started, what it has caused/corellated with (like medical racism, healthcare access, classism, etc.) and what has pushed it into the phase it is in today. I also have a strong sense of context for what it means in my community, growing up in berkeley and oakland and attending a public school where many students struggled with addiction. My vision for the framed photos would include my highscool diploma as well as senior portraits of my loved ones, i also want to try to do some embroidery with words because i think it would add some dimension and craft to an otherwise conceptual piece. I think i also might have drawings or something (?) with paint pens

sometimes i think i make myself too sad with thinking about all this too much but also feel like if it’s the only thing i can think of when i’m trying to make art about my life or that’s personal, or even about anything from history, that means i have to just do it until it isn’t the only thing that comes up for me anymore. Maybe because this is my final project for the year and i’m centering it around what coming of age meant to me it will be the last one.