School has diverted my attention away from this blog. But now I’m on Christmas break. Not that it means things stop; I simple don’t have classes. But my project work continues.
I am regularly impressed by the detail and nuance of these things broadly referred to as the arts. I find myself often with an intuitive understanding of something, but it’s not until I look into it further that I realise the depth.
As I proceeded with my project — on a multi-generational view of acculturation — I became concerned that it was too weighted towards a family history and thus less broadly appealing and getting too complex. I have found that a more poetic perspective on the problem often helps over come these challenges.
In this case I landed on a food analogy. Quite naively I looked at how our menu had changed over the past generations and thought it paralleled how our family had changed. However, I was somewhat surprised by the reaction I got: it was very positive, and strongly so. Stronger than I felt was merited.
I looked more closely at food, by searching “food and culture“, which spewed out the usual impossible number of hits: “About 935,000,000 results (0.95 seconds).” I quickly realised that I had stumbled onto a gold mine. It was both exciting and concerning. I am bolstered that my intuition is on track; disquieted by the amount I don’t understand or know. This latter realisation is a frequent one.
Over the coming months the course moves away from the theoretical, my comfort zone, into the practical: creating a documentary work. No doubt I will face more moments of disquiet.
Leave a Reply