assignments

Brainstorming, reflecting and mapping.

1. Chose one of the two mending approaches
2. Brainstorm and reflect on the questions that relate to one of the approaches and use any media (images, text, video, sound etc.) to create your map.
3. Document it on hotglue.
4. Optional: you can also make a second map of the approach you didn’t pick

Last year, I moved from the small village where I come from to the big city of Rotterdam to do this study. A step to growing up because I finally have a place for myself. The first year I lived in Rotterdam, I went back to my parents' house every weekend. But since the intelligent lockdown due to corona I stayed in Rotterdam almost the entire time. This also meant that I saw my friends and family less. And it turned out to bother me more than I initially thought, I miss my parents, siblings, and friends from home. I notice that my parents also find it difficult and miss me, especially my mother.

That's why I came up with the idea to come up with something to get used to the new kind of relationship I have with my mom. I used to speak to her weekly, if not daily. And that has decreased in quarantine time, which bothers us both.

EXERCISE 1: Mapping mending approaches

So I was trying to figure out what I was missing from seeing/speaking to my mom. I could actually name it right away. The feeling of coming home, the safe environment where I can be myself, the positive energy, and being able to tell and express everything. I wanted to continue with the latter, because expressing myself is also something I struggle with in the corona time.

WHAT DO I MISS FROM HER?

Mending with my mother to create a long distance relationship.

That's why I started looking at what I regularly do to express myself to clear my head.

One of those things is writing. I love poetry and writing off thoughts, yet I hardly do it. I then decided to write small poems of what was in my head at the time. I did that according to the technique of Joep Luycx from De Joepie Academie, a copywriter of whom we had a valuable course with Advertising last year.

Experimenting with techniques, and researching video documentation forms.
1. Try out a few new mending techniques that relate to your project. e.g sewing, stitches, kintsugi, artful apologies, repairing an electronic device, writing to a letter to neighbourhood for mutual aid, refurnishing/repairing an old assignment that you weren’t happy with, making a gift for a friend, writing a letter a complaint to your local municipality, organising online solidarity, or dance party, etc.

2. Experiment with 2 or 3 different ways of documenting your mending gesture through the medium of a video. Think about the role of documenting. What are you including or excluding in the video? What is the genre or form of the video, e.g. is it a video essay? is it a movie trailer? perhaps it’s a stop motion animation? or an online tutorial? or meditation video? What is the relationship between the mending gesture and video form? How do the different documentation genres change or influence your story?

3. Document both experiments in your hotglue

EXERCISE 2: SELF-DIRECTED RESEARCH

I wanted to combine writing with the new distance relationship I have with my mother. That's how I got the idea to send letters. I design the cards myself and write about my feelings / poems / or (fun) things that I have experienced. Mom herself is also very creative and thought it was a good idea, so she likes to participate. In addition to designing and sending, it is of course also very nice to receive cards.

That's how we started to become a kind of pen pals deluxe to keep each other up to date about our lives.