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As an aspiring artist I want to create artwork that people can look at and say “ Wow, She Worked Hard On That”. Some people think that they have to have experience , or know how to draw in order to create beautiful artwork. But I create art to show them that you don’t have to know how to make art to make art, all you need is inspiration and imagination.

In order to come up with an idea for my next piece of art I do some self searching and a little bit of inspiration searching as well. Most of my art pieces consists of my favorite colors or something that I think represents me and the community I live in. Materials come after I make my theme decision, depending on how it looks that's how I decide if it’ll look better painted or drawn. Most of the time I would decide to do something big that everyone will be able to see, and other times I would just use a simple canvas.

The picture that is posted above is my current work, nothing special. Like I said it just consisted of my favorite colors and I made it big enough for everyone to see. I used geometry as my inspiration, just because working with shapes and knowing how to incorporate different shades of one color is something that I've wanted to try. None of my past work is in relation to this one.

Group Artist Statement

By Cristian Fernandez, Alexus Tomlinson, Trey Hollinger, Samihah Maven ,Makyle Wyche

What we learned throughout this unit was who we truly are without a mask. We believe this was a lesson learned because of the videos we created and the research behind the poem. When creating our individual and the group videos we explored the possibilities of how an identity shown in just a picture can be actually be assumed as mainstream or fringe. The poem We Wear The Mask, helped us with this understanding because of its intake of mainstream and fringe acts and self consciousness can change the way we think and view ourselves.

To continue, this unit was about having a better understanding of our true identity and how to express it. We learned about the different mainstream and fringe ideas, cultures, and values. We learned that society discriminates against fringe ideas, values, and cultures but society accepts and praises mainstream ideas, values, and cultures. The knowledge gained from this video, is our interests in different things and our hobbies. We used these different hobbies and interests to come to a point where we could all relate to how we all feel so strong towards the things we love to do.  

In conclusion, we learned a valuable lesson, that we all wear masks to protect our identities from discrimination and to be without one is to fully express your true self, but normally the way that we act around other people is masking who we are and how we act internally. To be without a mask in todays society is to be defined as insane by the rest of the world, and these people are secluded by the rest of us, because we are all truly scared to express our true selves. The way that we interact with people in society is much different than that of the way that we internally feel and the way that we truly feel is sometimes, if not all of the time, the way that society deems us as mentally inefficient.   

Artist Statement

By Makyle Wyche

I believe we express ourselves because it shows people who we are. I think that a lot of people like to see other’s reaction to them. I believe that even if people say they don’t, I think everyone wants some attention to be paid to them. That’s why people post stuff on social media. If you post a status update on facebook, and you get no likes or no comments, you might feel a little bit upset. If you post a picture on instagram, and get no likes or comments, you might also be little bit upset. If you tweet something and get no retweets or favorites then you might also be a bit upset. We express ourselves to get things off of our chest, if you have a problem with someone, we might go to that person and express how we feel about the situation.

Technology affects the way we express ourselves a lot in todays world. Technology is always around us, and it super easy and simple to just post a quick vine of a rainbow in the sky, or take a picture of your pet and upload it to instagram. Technology also helps us connect with people. You can comment on friends pictures on facebook and instagram. You can talk to friends directly online with things like twitter and kik. Since it’s so easy to connect with people today, it’s also easy to make mistakes online. People express themselves so much, it has gone to the point that people can express themselves too much in my opinion. People say things to get them off of their chest and sometimes they end up forgetting that people have feelings and can be offended.

What you should know about my video in order to fully understand it is that I had a lot of fun creating and working on it. It was really fun. What I learned from the project is that I have a lot of fun in my life. Most of my pictures are of me having a good time. I took pictures with friends and I was having fun most of the time. One other thing that I included in my video as well are pictures of some of my favorite athletes, and I have fun watching them.

Individual Artist Statement

By Samihah Maven

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

― Marilyn Monroe

One aspect in myself in which I am comfortable and starting to become secure with now is my appearance. But, this comfortability did take a long process. Growing up, I was not the most popular or the most aesthetically pleasing girl in the world which began to occur to me when I was enrolled into elementary school. I was teased and poked at for my teeth structure , nose structure and even my weight. I chose not to include this in my individual or group Wevideo project because of my self consciousness. My self consciousness allows me to hide my imperfections. Or, how the poet who wrote the poem, “We Wear The Mask” states it as wearing a mask.

To continue, when first constructing my Wevideo I thought about my classmates and what my instructor would think and they’re opinions on my piece of work, but I did not include my thoughts and opinions on my own art work. I began to wear a mask to hide the hidden. To hide my imperfections… But, this isn’t just done by myself either. It has been done by many artists, students, teachers and even parents. We are all hiding behind a mask for a specific reason…

My reasoning for hiding behind this mask is because of my past. Being judged for being different is not the ideal situation for a fourteen year old, which is the reason why i chose to go mainstream with my video instead of fringe.

In conclusion, the lesson I believe that is presented in my individual Wevideo is you should not compare your imperfections nor ignore your flaws. You should embrace who you truly are and not fall into the hidden mask that the mainstream offers.

Artist Statement

By Trey Hollinger

I express myself in many different ways. Many of them are shown in my video. People express themselves in many different ways like emotions, feelings, talents/hobbies, personality, appearance, interests, inspirations, and so much more. This is what I want my audience to get out of this video, I want them to understand how I have bettered myself in my life to and learned how accept others for who they are no matter how different we are. I have learned how to write with more emotion, how you should not judge others based off of appearance and that no matter how much you think you know someone it could be completely different behind closed doors We all express ourselves so people can get a better understanding of us from a different point of view than just perseverance. Technology plays a big part in how we interact with each other.

In addition, technology does affect the way people socialize and how people express themselves. Where as though before people may have described themselves in writing the technology we have now makes it so much easier at a push of a button. I use technology daily to express my complexities of myself. Including, my video I used it to explain my emotions without words, point out hobbies and interests I have, and show sides of me I know if it wasn’t mandatory I probably wouldn’t do it on my own. Though I may not have understood the things I do now, throughout this project I have learned much.

In conclusion, I have learned to express myself in many ways I didn’t before

Individual Artist Statement

By Alexus Tomlinson

   What did you learn doing this project?

From this project I learned that myself and my peers wear masks to hide our true identities because we are afraid that society won't accept who we are.  I also learned that society will discriminate against you if your ideas, values and cultures are not mainstream.  I also learned that I am not ready to take off my mask because I am still afraid of discrimination from society. I also learned that wearing a mask make me feel comfortable and safe. It makes a person feel like they are not risking no being accepted.

What does the audience need to know in order to fully understand your video?

The audience to know that I didn’t include my self singing in the video because I am afraid of putting myself out there. It is a mask that I am not ready to take off so instead a singer in our video is supposed to represent me. Our video revolved around our interests and hobbies so my hobbies are listed below my picture. We chose this topic because it was safe and didn’t need to be masked versus if we chose sexual orientation it would have been difficult to share because society discriminates against non-straight people.

Why do we express ourselves?

We express ourselves because self expression allows you to show who you are. Self expression is a great way to be at peace with yourself and truly be the person you want to be. People can use music, writing, the way the dress. etc. Self expression makes each person unique. It it how we have different personalities and how we can create success. If you do not express who you are than you are are not helping yourself develop and we should always be developing into better people. If we do not express ourselves we cannot define who we are. We express our selves to show who we are. Since everybody is different it is important that we show the distinction between each other. That is how we show our importance to the world.

How does technology affect the way we express ourselves and connect with others?         

Technology affects the way we express ourselves a lot. It causes us to have a lot less personal interaction. We can use social media to show our interests and hobbies such as fashion, animals, community service etc. Things like phones, facebook, twitter instagram etc allow us to easily share an emotional moment with the millions of people. I think the shield that a screen provides for people allows people connect more with themselves making them even more social than they might be in person. Technology is no longer simple and slow. It is complex and fast, with a few clicks you can document your how life and share it with others. Technology makes self expression easier because it requires less time and effort.

How have I expressed the complexity of myself in this video?

In this video I use a song to play in the background because I love music. For me being a music lover and natural. Music makes me feel connected to an artist and I like sharing the same emotions with someone. The song does not have to have specific words it justs needs to make me want to dance and it needs to make me feel happy. Happiness is a big idea or theme in my video. That is why I show pictures of food I like and pictures of me with friends and family. These are most happiest times and right now in my life one of my greatest goals is to do my best to stay happy. Without happiness I cannot function correctly. Sadness or angry disrupts my entire life by making me do things I wouldn’t normally do, like not do my school work.  When I am happy I am not trying to hide my feelings or critique myself. This is when I am my true self as shown in my video.

Artist statement

Group Artist Statement:

For our group video, our group found similarities and differences about each other, and put them together to create the video. Our topic was interests and hobbies, and we worked collaboratively to come up with ideas. We incorporated our different hobbies and interests into the video, starting with differences and working our way towards similarities. In the end, we found out that we aren’t as different as we had initially thought.

Our different hobbies and interests included shooting targets, running track, drawing, and animals. One shared interest between Ngozi and Alyssa was drawing. Another thing in the video was our love of slushies, which shows that even something simple can bring people together. We also included our favorite movies and books. Though they were all different, we still all share the similarity that we enjoy movies and books.

The music we chose was Blank Space by Taylor Swift and Rather Be (feat. Jess Glynne) by Clean Bandit. We chose Blank Space for the opening because it is one of Jessica’s favorite songs, and the intro was about her hobby. We used Rather Be for the rest of the video. It was Anaya’s suggestion, and everyone agreed that it would be a great song to use. This was also part of the collaboration and our shared similarities, since we all enjoyed the song.

From this project we learned more about each other, and that we can all collaborate no matter how different we are. After completing the project we became closer friends. Collaborating was an easy task, and we worked well together. Everyone contributed their ideas and pictures.

Jessica's Artist Statement:

This video is reflective of the most important moments of my life. There is no specific order of which I put these in, but common things are together. The songs of which I chose were dependent on the pictures and videos. Not every song is something that I would necessarily listen to, but they fit the pictures.

Every picture has some meaning to me. Except for three of the quotes, I was at every moment and I remember them to the fullest and I miss these things more and more each day. “TUR CAMINA MI” means “All About Me” in the native language of Aruba: Papiamento. I have been there seven times and I hope to go back more.

Alyssa’s Artist Statement:

I am an adventurous, creative, animal-loving person with a big family who lives on a quiet street. Using technology, I was able to put together a video expressing these traits. Technology has become instantaneous and international, and it makes sense that social beings such as humans would use it for self expression. In my video, I used pictures, videos, and audio to express myself. Using these mediums, I cut my video into small sections, each telling something different about myself.

The first section of my video is about my summer vacation with my best friend, Jessica. For this section I played a fitting beach tune. I showed a picture of us together, and another picture of us(though you can only see Jessica) before we boarded the bungee cord ride at Wildwood. The ride pulls you high into the air lying down, then drops you at the highest point. Though I was unsure if I wanted to ride it at first, in the end my adventurous side won out. Being lifted high into the air was scary, but thrilling at the same time. In the end, it was an exciting experience, and I hope to ride it again in the future.

In the second section of my video, I showed my cats. This symbolises my love of animals. My pets are a part of my family, and have been with me for years. I used a jungle-themed audio for this segment to compare my pet cats to wild cats. Mimi is the white cat shown, and Joyce is the black cat. I have wanted a pet for as far back as I can remember, even before kindergarten. I remember being obsessed with dalmatians, thanks to the Disney movie 101 Dalmatians. When I was six, my neighbors got a gray tabby kitten named Binky. I would often see her through their screen door. When Binky was old enough to go outside, I would try to befriend her, but she was scared of me at first. Over time, Binky let me pet her and came to greet me, and I care for her like my own cat. Binky is what inspired me to get a cat of my own. I would have gotten one a long time ago, but my dad is mildly allergic to cats and dogs. I decided that begging my parents would not work, and that maybe if I researched cats they would let me have one. Determined not to give up, I researched the perfect cat for my family. Since my dad is allergic, I researched cats that were hypoallergenic. I finally found a cat called the Siberian cat, which was hypoallergenic, had long fur but did not shed much, and had a good temperament. My parents saw how much research I’d done and finally let me get a cat, but she was not at all a Siberian cat. On the last day of summer, going into fifth grade, my family adopted Mimi. Mimi was around nine months old when we got her, and was found on the streets starving and pregnant. She had to have an abortion, because she would not have survived birthing kittens. We connected instantly, and to this day Mimi still follows me around like a little puppy. A year later we adopted Joyce, an extremely friendly overweight cat from the SPCA, and I have been trying to help her lose weight.

In the third section of my video, I showed myself adding the finishing touches to the sketch and final of my English Book Reflection project. I chose the audio file titled “rave” for this section because I felt the section of audio I used showed how I am focused  when I draw. Drawing is something I love to do, and it’s hard for me not to doodle when holding a pen or pencil. Though my drawings aren’t perfect, I’m still improving. The picture I drew depicts the battle between the shape-shifting dog and alien monster from my book report. I drew the shape-shifting dog, who had changed into a dragon-like creature, how I imagined him in the book. I looked at a few dragon references for things like the scales and claws, but drew my own distinct pose. I was unsure of how to draw the alien creature, so I looked at a reference from the movie, and drew my own pose for that one as well. I learned more about drawing anatomy and shading from this drawing, and will keep improving these things in the future.

In the fourth section of my video, I showed pictures of where I live, and places I visit often. I played calming music for this section because I felt at home in these pictures. A few were pictures of the front and back of my house, a place where I feel at ease. There is no one my age on my street, and it’s calm for the most part. In another picture I showed a pretty scene from my walk home from summer camp in the summer. I have been going to the camp for several years, and am now a counselor. In the last picture I displayed a park which my cousins and I often meet to hang out.

In the fifth section of my video is about my family. I felt the music I played had an almost family-like feel at the end of it, sounding like a song about family that sticks together. I showed a picture of my brother and I when we were small, and another of my dad holding me when I was very young. I also showed a video of my younger cousin dancing at my grandmother’s house, where my dad’s side of the family often meets. We celebrate birthdays and holidays together there. On my mom’s side of the family we celebrate events at my uncle’s house. I have a big family, and I love them. My cousins are my best friends, and we are always there for each other.

Anaya’s Artist Statement:

Why do we express ourselves. This is a question that I can only answer for myself. I express myself because it is a way for me to share my feelings or thoughts. I may also express myself to give others a better explaining of me as a person. For example, the quote “don’t judge a book by its cover”. This quote best supports my reason. If someone looked at me they might not like me but once i open up to them they’ll understand and accept me.

How does technology affect the way we express ourselves and connect with others? Technology affects the way we express yourself because there are many ways you can express yourself. You can express yourself anonymously, you are still expressing yourself even though no one knows its you. You can also express yourself using social media. You can post pictures or videos and share post that can be commented on.

How have you expressed the complexity of your identity in your video? I expressed myself in my video with the things i love. The number one thing is myself. I love myself and no one can change that, I believe that if i don't love myself nobody will. The second thing i love is my family and friends. Without them i don't know where i would be today. They support me with everything, good and bad. Also, my favorite celebrity ever.. Rihanna. Rihanna would have to be one of my biggest role model because she didn't let anything get in the way with her accomplishing and remaining to be successful. Lastly, i included bible quotes. Unlike other children i enjoy going to church and doing things that have to deal with my religion. These quotes help me to continue on with my journey of growing up, they help me to keep my head up and be positive. 

In order to understand the video you should know a few things. One thing you should know is what is in the video, you may see it but not know what it is. You should understand what is in the video for example, if someone showed a picture of a sport they play and you don't know what it is you wouldn't fully have an understanding.

Ngozi’s Artist statement                                                                                                          

Through the previous essay, videos, and watching TED talks, I can say that I have made an artist statement that defines who I am and other people: What I have learned on what makes a person who they are would have to be what they would say or do to make someone think about them like in a sense of how they they would view a person. But that also comes from your culture. And to make a point on my first comment, it doesn't matter on how others view you but on how you view yourself. And in what place you're comfortable being you and accepting it. It’s then you find a way to express yourself. For me the way I would express myself is through art and my drawings. And I need to make a statement that you don’t relief stress from art. Based on the things you draw you can tell almost immediately how you are feeling. For example, if you were to see a drawing someone made and it’s a picture of events that happened in “Harry Potter”, you can make a judgement on the person on weather he/she likes mythology or just plain action.

But another thing that we can express ourselves in is through technology. The way people are posting stuff online are expressing themselves a whole lot and they don’t even recognize it. Some people can say that texting mean pictures can be a way of expressing yourself. But I would like to go deeper in it and say something personal. For instance, someone can be nice, kind, loving, and enjoyable in the real world but gets bullied a lot, but online or like in Facebook, the person will be one of those people you would be scared to be around of. And that's what the person is trying to do. Scare people after suffering the experiences in his own life. And he knows he’s safe because he has a virtual identity on the internet that no one could ever link to him. So that's why he knows that he wouldn't be saying this stuff that he says on the internet in real life. Because he himself is scared.

Over the course of working on the Express Myself! Group Video Project, we learned a lot of things about each other.  We learned how to relate to people that are nothing like us, and we learned many interesting things about them.  For example, we took challenges that we normally may have never taken, and we did things that we might not had felt comfortable with.  However, we did it, which helped us see a different view of things through other peoples eyes. This unit was about finding ways to not only collaborate, but effectively work together in a productive and creative way.  Through completing this project, we learned about people’s culture, interests, hobbies, and family background.  When we were done with this project, we became more aware of people’s true identity and why they are who they are.

In our video, we showed many pictures and videos which helped viewers to comprehend the main purpose for our video, and what we want the viewers to get out of watching the video.  Our main purpose for this video was to inform anyone who watches this video about who we are as individuals how all of us are different, and how we can use our differences to collaborate and work together.  In our video, we went down the line and made sure we covered everyone’s interests and hobbies, and how they relate to all of us.  A couple main themes that we portrayed in our video are collaboration, values, identity, who we are, differences, similarities, culture, background, vulnerability, and what kind of masks we wear. In the video, we tried to be as open as possible and show our viewers who we actually are and not just who we want people to see us as we appear to be.  By doing this, we got to show anyone who views this who we truly are.

We all have different religions,styles of dressing, and cultural background. Although we have so many differences somehow  we find a way to effectively communicate and get along with each other as a whole.Cultural Background is is the context of one's life experience as shaped by membership in groups based on ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, language, religion, sexual orientation, and geographical area.You could keep your cultural background alive by just believing in it and being proud of it.Religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.Last but not least. Style is  a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed.In our presentation we will show and tell how we connect through our differences.

Our group question was : How do you make healthy and valuable  relationships with people who are different from you?     

Our responses were :

Chris’s response:  Respect people and treat others the way you will want to be treated.

Nathan’s response:Accepting people for who they are and don’t  look at them in a stereotypical way.

Autumn’s response: To never judge a person by their looks.

Stephanies response: Get to know the person first before you start judging them.

Our style of dressing is like the same because we all like to be creative and like to be matching. In this group, even though we are different genders,it is like we think the same when we wear our clothes because we always look well. Even though we are different people we express our self in many different ways and clothing is one of the most important one to us. Also another way we express ourselves is by our religion. In this group of four all of us are Christians. Although we all are Christians, there are different types of Christians. In this group we have Lutheran, Baptist, and New Testament. In other words, some things we believe are different, but we all believe in the Bible. In our video, we also talked about where our great  grandparents originated.  All of our ancestors are from different parts of the world. Our ancestors came from Ireland, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and America. Since our ancestors come from different parts of the world,  we celebrate different holidays. For example, some of us celebrate St. Patricks Day, and others don’t. Some of the holidays that we have in common are Christmas and  Thanksgiving. Most of our ancestors immigrated to America a long time ago. We all have different backgrounds, which helps us get along, because we are all different and can learn many things from each other.

During this unit, we learned a lot pertaining to self expression. We had a question that we had to answer in our WeVideo.That question was: How do you make healthy and valuable relationships with people who are different from you?Answering this question,we make healthy and valuable relationships with people who are different by not judging the person.For example we learned about our background, religion, and style of dressing. This helped us learn and deal with people who have different backgrounds and cultures than us.Overall after watching and constructing multiple We-Videos, we learned a lot pertaining to discrimination and judgemental skills.

Therefore, in conclusion making these WeVideo have been an easy way to learn about one another and express your true identity. Collaborating with one another has been a great experience on each part, even when we disagreed. While learning about finding our true identity, I believe our identity is like a  jigsaw puzzle, there is still more pieces to be put in the puzzle because we still have more life to live. Before ending this essay I would like to end it with a quote,

“One of the most beautiful qualities of a true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

During this group video I have learned alot of different things and how to work with different people that has different personalities .This video was basically about the four of us in the group and the way that we express gain a strong and healthy relationship even though we have different backgrounds.This was not very hard for us because we came to a conclusion of having respect for each other and listening to each other opinion on different things. We talked about a lot of things like;religion, style of dressing,food,and we all have ancestors from different parts of the world,which I never knew.And we spoke about holidays that we do and don’t celebrate.

Talking about this stuff we got to see what we got in common and what we don’t.We have found out that all of us like to dress well and we all believe in the same religion.We even talked about hobbies and things that we like to do for fun and we all had different hobbies.

We try our best to work well together without allot of arguments and disagreements,and we still had a lot of arguments and disagreements,but I think that is what made us such a good group because some of our arguments taught us why we it is important to listen to someone else idea or perspective on something.

Our Express Yourself Group video, was a journey that we would all cherish. The video has many things which we are doing at a constant rate everyday. The video starts out with differences we all posses, then showing some similarities we all have. Jordan is artistic, while we are not that artistic to create drawings and sketches he can create. On the other hand, Cash’e is not that interested in sports, while the rest of us participate in some sport. RaVana, wants to go further educate herself in some kind of cosmetology school. However, we all would like to pursue a career in the science field. Finally, Mallika has a completely different taste of music than us, Bollywood. Even though there is the difference that Mallika possesses, the video shows the similarities we all have. We all are die-hard fans of fried chicken, we can eat it all the time. Many pictures of us together were also included, as well as our school goals.We showcase our characteristics, on a whiteboard as well. Some characteristics mentioned on the whiteboard included that we all are honest, caring, friendly, and etc. The video closes out with the the characteristics displaying.

Creating these videos as a group, to share our similarities and differences was not the only goal. Our video is trying to spread a theme, a message to people who tend to differentiate themselves from others. A theme which we were trying to share out was, be confident in yourself when it comes to expressing yourself. We applied this theme in our lives as, helping Mallika gain confidence by sharing Bollywood music videos. She was nervous at first, but after gaining self-confidence it was easier for her to express her music taste. Be confident in yourself when expressing yourself to a wider audience. It definitely helps you in the future because you are not too shy. Another, theme which is indirectly being imposed is being different. Being a different person, possessing different characteristics and personalities makes you unique than others’. So, if you being a person who is trying to fit in, you are losing your own uniqueness. This theme doesn’t look like it is being imposed, but it is. The two themes mentioned above were the themes we wanted to mention through the video, as it is carrying an important which needs to be followed soon.

Mallika Saini's Artist Statement

The complexity of my life, has been explained through the video. I have displayed key things which are close to me and define me. For example, the pictures that relate to festivals show that I am really close to the cultural festivals. Such as Diwali and Holi, since those two are the festivals which I have been more prone to than others. Another, element which shows the complexity of my life are my family and friends. My family are people who I am tremendously close to and they help me define in every possible way. They are a part of my life which I have valued since the day I was born. Finally, another way the complexity of my life is presented through my video is my love and affection for Bollywood and cricket. I can view Bollywood movies all day and night, they lead me into another whole world. Cricket, is another thing which represents me because I love watching cricket, especially the International Indian Cricket team and the Kolkata Knight Riders. They way the can bat and catch a heavy ball in the air flying with great pressure amazes me. These are key parts of my video which represent that I have different and unique from others’.

There is so much into my life, that my video needs a bit more explanation to some people. My video includes some details on my religion and festivals, as you might already know I am not a Christian. I am from a Punjabi family, I follow Sikhism which has different holidays than Christians do. For example, you might not understand why my sister is putting color on my face or why we have color on our face at all. This festival is most known as Holi, meaning the Festival of Colors, where we celebrate the wonderful colors life gives us. You might need to understand those pictures in order to understand the video overall. I believe that knowing that I am a Punjabi, following Sikhism will allow you to understand the video much better. This is important because the role of religion and festivals play a huge role in my life.

Expressing myself through a video, was a very touching project to me. It was a very one of a kind way to let us express ourselves to our classmates. A way for others’ to learn how I define myself and express myself. Through the procedure of making this project I learned many things. One of the many things I learned throughout the project was that there are many ways to express ourselves. I mean I created a 2 minute, 10 second video and expressed many things about myself. I always believed that for expressing ourselves to a wider auditions to have to express every single thing. However, in this video I was able to express myself in many ways, religion, music, family, etc. This was the biggest lesson I learned by completing this project. Overall it is a small, simple, but very inspiring thought I realized as I was making the video, as well as presenting it.

Saraa Fadl's Artist Statement

For my individual video, I put pictures of my religion, values,my love for soccer, and quotes that I love. These pictures show who I am. These things are what builds up to who I am. As I was creating this video, I made sure that I represent every topic as I can so that the audience can understand the type of person I am.Even though I showed a lot of pictures that can identify me, there were still things that I haven’t mentioned.For example, I didn’t show my career since it wasn’t really on my mind as I was creating the video. My career is becoming an FBI agent. As I was watching my video, I saw that I put a lot of my friends and family. The reason behind that is that I value them the most. So, to sum it up, I think that the way I created this video is exceptional to me.

We learned that there are people different from us in the world and, we should not judge them based on their appearance, thoughts, feelings, and the way that they choose to express themselves. Our video represents our community’s open-mindedness by having interviews that asked people in our community questions about acceptance, and feeling accepted in our community. Open-mindedness is being accepting of other people, thoughts, and feelings. You don’t hold bias against anyone without a legitimate reason.

We must accept others for who they are and what they believe or do. We must accept that this is the world we live in with many different people who may not share the same as us. My video shows who I am and what I find what’s significant to me and what I appreciate as a person.  

That’s what I felt comfortable with to share with everyone. That was the first step of removing the “mask."

-Kareem

My video was a bunch of photos that I have taken, and most were posted on a social network. The whole idea behind my video is that we express ourselves through social media. I learned about that in class, and by doing this project and looking at what I post on social media such as Twitter or Facebook, I have learned that it is indeed true.

I am really fond of my hats, so that is what my video is mostly about. I do have some of my other favorite things in it as well, but most of my video was about me and my hats. Some of my favorite things were also in the video such as my favorite college, sneakers, foods, and sports players.

For my video this showed people and things that helped mold me as a person. Things I would say were music and family. This showed my views on those topics about the person I am now and who I want to be. I learned that I’m a unique person in this world and is just trying to find my way in life.

Artist Statement: In our video we show everything that we believe defines us. We include everything that we believe differentiates us from each other. Like parts of our cultures, interests, hobbies, goals, and beliefs. Through these things we ourselves were able to point out how different each of us are. And even though we singled out all of our differences we are able to look past that and easily accept and collaborate with each other. We chose this approach to our video because we wanted to accentuate our differences to better show the message we wanted to convey. That message was just because we are different doesn’t mean we can’t get along.

Our unit was about people of different backgrounds, different interests, different mind sets coming together and expressing themselves to each other. In the unit we focused on the theme of identity and self expression to show our true selves. We learned how to accept each other for who we are and how to express ourselves without a mask. We think that our video represents some new learning and knowledge. It represents how people with differences can overcome those differences and get along. Also with enough collaboration you can learn to accept each other.

One thing you should know about my video is that I believe I have expressed the complexity of who I am by showing the side of my self that isn’t expressed in my daily life. Most of the things that were shown in my video are things that I do on my personal time or whenever I can. None of that normally transfers into the things I do everyday or the way I present my self daily. I’ve shown a part of me that was covered by a mask.

By completing this project I learned that there are reasons on why we express ourselves and that there are effects of technology on the way we express ourselves and the way we connect with others. I learned that we express ourselves to show and develop our identity through the reactions of others to figure out who we are. We also express ourselves because we want others to know who we are. Technology affects the way we express ourselves and connect with others by allowing us to express ourselves faster and more publicly. It let’s us share with people around the world so more people can see who you are. It also makes some make less people interact socially and makes them interact more through the use of technology. - Epifanio Rios

Unit 1 was about expressing who we are through topics like our interests, hobbies, cultures, and sexual orientation. We figured out why and how people wear ‘masks’. We learned that despite all of our differences in cultures and race, we have a lot in common. It was surprising seeing the resemblance in food, music, etc. Even though our cultures are very widely spread apart it was interesting seeing how close we really were. During this video we learned about other cultures and even more about our own backgrounds. This represents the start of no racial difference because so many people think that we can't get along with other races because they were raised up doing something different but really doing this makes us come a little closer to accepting different races and enjoying and cherishing the differences while still having similarities.

In our video, we had took an exclusive look on each one of our individual cultures and races divided by name and cultural Background. Dior being Native American, Sakura being African American, Mercedez (a huge load of things) but mainly focusing in being Hispanic and Brandon and Migdalia being Borinqueños (Puerto Rican). We all focused on main aspects of our cultures and how they affect our daily lives. Examples we used like food: Sakura’s photos of Philly cheese-steaks, music: Mercedez’s use of Spanish background music, family, friends and things that inspire us like Dior’s pictures of Wolves and Migdalia and Brandons pictures of the PuertoRican flower the Hibiscus.  In the end we had a small slide show of us together because we all still manage to like each other despite our differences. We had many pictures us of doing us because we still can collaborate and be friends even if we all go home and eat different things. At the end of the day we are more similar than we think.

When I was creating my video, I thought about all the things that helps define myself.  In order to fully understand my video, you would have to pay close attention to the pictures and you can honestly tell the things that can draw out a clear picture of who I am.If you can’t draw in the hidden messages through my pictures then you wouldn’t be able to fully understand me. By completing this project, I have learned that there were certain things that I cherish more than others. For example in my video, it felt like to me that I cared about my friends more than my family, which is false. I love them both equal and I didn’t believe that a vast amount of pictures would be needed to prove it.

Why do we express ourselves? we express ourselves because it shows people who we are as a person, we express ourselves because it helps us find out who we are and what we like to do and the different things we like. When doing this we really get to know who ourselves better.

In my video it shows the things that make me the person i am today. They are my friends and family because without them i wouldn't really know who i am i wouldn't be the fun loving person they see me as. When doing this project i learned that you shouldn’t have to wear a mask to fit into society and they want you to be you should be your self not nobody else.

My Express Myself! individual video is all about me, of course. It goes into categories of my family, friends, relationships, and hobbies or interests. These things mean a lot to me, as they are describing me as a person. Throughout the quarter, we have been learning how to express ourselves and why. I believe my statements and videos have already explained many things about me that wouldn’t come up in my usual conversations. I have learned to trust the people that i present myself too, because, in return of showing who I am to them, I will receive their opening up also. As soon as we all realize that we are in safe learning environment, free of judgement, then we will all be one step closer to a less judgemental and open society, and that is what I have learned over the course of my English class.

My main focus while doing my video was to make people understand my daily life and show who i really am. I learned many things about myself during this whole unit like how i love plants. I just found that out! This gives me time to analyze my knowledge about myself and how much more things I’m left to find out about myself.

In my video everything is very cluttered and that was one of my main things that i actually wanted to do. My life isn't in order its crazy and fun and just not planned so spacing everything out was cool for me. I included my love for music, family, friends plants, activities like: poetry, laying on my hammock reading and eating. Sleeping was not included but i wish i had. I put many photos so everything is really fast and I liked it like that because in the end my life has many moments and i wanted to include everything.

Syed Jamil

To fully know my video, I need to fully the understand purpose of making the video and what my peers and others will get out watching this video. By completing project, I’d learned that it’s important for others to know the full complexity of one’s self.I  think  people  express  themselves  with  their  personalities. People   express  themselves  with  their  personalities  so  that  they  would  be  able to  find  some  similar  traits  or  interests  and  potentially  find  some connections  with  people. We  express  ourselves  so  that  people  can  get  a  general  idea  of  our interests  and  personal  thoughts  about  certain  things. By  getting  more chances  to express  yourself,  the  more  that  people  will  get  to  know  about  you  and  that  might  lead  to  having  possible  connection.                 

English Post                                    Chloe Bartlett

As we were watching the videos, we learned about everyone’s interests and how we can accept each other for the way we are. we learned that even though we are completely different, we can still have a lot of interests and be friends. By learning this we can understand each other and we can look at each other as equal.

Our video is about how we share some of the same interests, and how we are similar but different at the same time. We learned that even though we are different we understand each other and look past our outside appearance and see we are similar. We may like different genres in books, but we all like reading. We all like to watch TV, but different shows. These are just a few examples of how we can be similar.

My video is about my interests, which is basically just photography. I love to take photographs and that is what the majority of my video is. The few pictures of me with my friends are only there because they are my closest friends.

What I learned during this unit is how much some people enjoy certain things. The things that were in everyone’s videos were, in most cases, completely different. Even though we all have different interests, we have still found a way to accept each other and respect each other.

As I did my Express Myself Video I learned a lot about myself. Even though I am quite opened about any topic I realized as I was choosing which topic or characteristic I wanted people to know about me I came across some that were uncomfortable to me. I wanted to overcome that issue in order to show  people my story and why I like the things I do.

I know my past and I know why I do things, but I never sat down and explained it before so it felt like I was channeling through events and development throughout my years. I needed to choose which ones were important to show people why I like drawing, anime and video games. Picking where to start off was confusing in the matter because I had so many things that happened to me when I was younger. I then thought I should start when I was diagnosed at four years old. I felt uneasy telling my class about this because I feared they would look at me different like how my past classes did. Then I told my friends about it and they saw me as the same person. I then felt more comfortable about placing it in my video because I knew my condition is the reason why I am like this today and my friends wouldn’t judge me.

What my express my video really means to me is how life passes by. My video is a short 2 minute slideshow of pictures of me growing up. In a way this video is the timeline of my up and coming life. What I learned from doing this project is that its ok to open up to my classmates and know that I wouldn’t be judged by my lifestyle. I also learned a lot of interesting things about each one of my classmates weather it was the littlest things as having a little sister or brother or the biggest things like losing a parent or having a heart condition.

My video was about me and what things that I like and describe my self by.

In my video the first thing that i had was a starting screen/slide that looked like it had a spy theme and I had a spy theme song in the background. This symbolizes my love for spies, spy games, and spy movies such as james bond.

Next was a picture of Mac N Cheese which is my favorite food.

After that there is a picture of one of my friends with a photo shopped balloon head. This shows my liking of messing with pictures and for my liking of company because I don’t like being alone anywhere doing anything.

The next two pictures show two of my 5 favorite videos games of all time showing my love for video games. The first picture is the logo of destiny along with the word destiny. The second picture is of the logo of

Team Fortress 2 along with the logo and all 9 playable characters behind them.

One of my favorite childhood books is shown in the slide that follows. it is the cover of a graphic novel by Doug TenNapel called Earthboy Jacobus. This represents my affection towards graphic novels, anime, and any book with pictures.

MAGIC THE GATHERING are the only words on the next slide. The two slides that follow show two of my rarest and favorite cards that I own from the game. Magic the gathering is a card game that I have played with my close friends for years. this shows my liking for card games as well as board games.

The next slide is one you don’t want to look down in if you're afraid of heights. It shows me rock climbing after being peer pressured into doing it by my little brother and my dad. P.S I’am scared to death of heights.

After that it rolls on to two different pictures of me and my bother representing my love for family.

Throughout this whole video project and all the essays along with it, I realized what truly defines me which is eating, friends and family, games of all sorts including video games, my liking of books with pictures, making peoples heads look weird in pictures, and my great fear of heights.

Before this project I don't think I was ever forced to think about what truly defines me as a whole so I’am somewhat thankful for this project

This unit, we learned  the courage people obtain or don’t  possess to allow others to know who they are. We analyzed a poem called, “We Wear the Mask.” This reflected the truth of  hiding your emotions and opinions in order to be accepted by society and the people in it. Everyone wants to be accepted as normal and fear being criticized of who they really are. Another theme was self expression. People identify themselves by their race, sexual orientation, the way they dress, culture, gender and hobbies or interests. These are the main ways people are judged by society, depending on if their identity is mainstream or fringe.

Our video was about the interests and hobbies of our group.  We picked out things we like to do, and showed our own ways of doing it.  For example we portrayed our favorite music artists, food, and leisure activities (drawing, sports and singing).Then we explained how they relate to each other.

As a citizen of today’s judgemental society, I have learned to express myself through my likes, dislikes, physical presentation and my personality. From this unit of learning about expressing ourselves, I did just that and it was a fun and interesting way for me to present myself to others the way I wanted to be be presented. I think it is important for anyone viewing this video to know that we all individually got to decided who we wanted to be viewed as. We got to share what we wanted and how we wanted it to be shared without the hesitation caused by fear of being judged. I have definitely learned how to be myself.

Group Artist Statement:

Throughout this project our group learned many things, whether it was as a group or individually. We found out that when we work together as a group we can do anything and that when we are alone we learn to be ourselves.

For the first marking period that we have been a group, we bonded in many ways and managed to get projects done while having fun doing it. We learned many things that we can look back upon and have nothing but good memories. We learned a lot about each other through this project, for example our hobbies, culture, personalities, and many other things.

However, for the whole marking period we got all our projects done and got good grades on MOST of them while having fun. We each had a chance to try out each others hobbies, we had the chance to bond and become friends, and many more things.

From the makings of these videos, we discovered that we don't need to hide behind a mask because of our differences. We made these videos where we all told each other about our different hobbies, interests, culture, etc. We did not judge anyone based on any of the following qualities; instead we tried each other’s traits out. While doing this, we had a fun time doing the things that we knew nothing about. So what we learned while doing this project is that there is no need to hide behind a mask because if you come out and no one judges, you can have fun and learn things about someone that you never knew before.

Michael’s Artist Statement:

Why do we express ourselves? We express ourselves for many reasons. The first reason is that people express themselves is to get attention and to be notice by others. The second reason is to communicate. We have complex communication and languages for social reason and we express these things through art, music, writing, etc.

Technology has change over the past hundred years. People also change with technology to adapt with newer types of devices. Technology affects the way we connect with others by distracting ourselves from personal interactions. People now use technology because it is a easier and faster way to express ourselves. Unlike in person, through technology, you can know express your thoughts and emotions in a more efficient way to almost everyone you know at once, and maybe too people you have never meet.
I have expressed myself as a person of a person who likes school and spends most of his time there. I have also express myself as a person who loves dance music as showed in the audio of the music. In addition to that, I have express myself as a builder, as you may see in the video, I build a lot of cool things. I then farther in the video, express myself as a people who loves to watch anime. Last but not least, I express myself as a person who loves selfies, as shown in the video, it is about 65% of my video! Thought the video I show may look a bit easy to make for some people. I find it an amazing accomplishment and a wonderful experience, for the reason that it is the first video I ever made.

The idea of who I really am, and how I choose to express myself is a pretty new one for

me.  Since we began this project in class, I have learned a lot of interesting things about people expressing themselves as human beings and how I would like to express myself,  I have realized that self-expression is complicated, but important.

I learned that a lot of people need to express themselves to the world because it helps them to be an individual.  If they did not express themselves as an individual, many people would feel lost or alone. Since we made a video of how we choose to express ourselves, I decided to express myself based on my family, friends, and my hobbies. These are the three key things in my life. These things describe who I am perfectly.

I think that people forming a first impression of my by looking at my video would think that I am a pretty simple person.  But in reality, after doing this project, I have realized that who I am is much more complicated than that.  I think that I am only just beginning to learn how to express myself.

My video is inspired from my from my instagram. I use my instagram to express myself a lot. I took a few videos and picture from my instagram, mainly the ones that have a meaning or represent me. I don’t post just anything on my instagram. I only upload things that i’m into and I think is worth saving or worth everyone else seeing.

I express myself for people to get an understanding of me. I express myself in many different ways. I do this because I want people to know me as a very diverse person. For example, my instagram. You mainly see skateboarding because that’s what i’m interested in the most. You also see art, photography, music, fashion and many other things. This leads to the next question. How does technology affect the way we express ourselves and connect with others? As I previously said, I only upload things that I think is worth other people seeing. People could honestly express themselves as much as they want through technology. For example, look at anyone facebook. You can tell what type of person they are just by what they post. In this video I used a few things that describe me the most. It’s a mix of everything that mean something to me or play the biggest role in my life. I think I expressed my complexity by using many different types of topics. I don’t have a video full of picture of myself. I mixed it up with old pictures of myself, new pics of myself, skateboarding, art, family, and photography. I showed the things that I would personally use to describe myself.

This video is basically a quick summary of how I would describe myself and how I express myself. I am artistic, athletic, and I love my family. This is how I want other is see me. This is how I express myself.

Jordon’s Artist Statement:

In my video I expressed my hobbies a lot. I learned that finding who I am and what I like to do is very important. I feel like the saying “I know you better than you know yourself” is very important. That should not be the case, you should find things you love and look back into your memories and find you who you are. The thing is I don’t take good photos of myself, I don’t think I look right. So I take pictures of places I visit, things I do that are fun, and just things in my life period. Getting to know yourself and defining yourself should be a life goal. I never really thought about finding who I am or defining who I am before this project. I just thought of taking pictures was just to make memories, but that's just part of it. They remind you who you are and what makes you different from everyone else. Knowing who you are lets you reveal that you are not the same as one person in this world. Many people want to fit in but they don’t want to be exactly the same as everyone. I am one of those people. I sometimes pick a trend that is going on right now but a lot of the time I pick my own style.

Mukhtar: When I first came to this school I only knew a few people, mainly people from my soccer team, students in my advisory, and two classmates I went to elementary and middle school with. I was glad to see that in my advisory I had an old friend from elementary school and I was glad to see her because I had so much to catch up on, with her and tell her how life was at my old school when she left. I was also glad to see another classmate who I knew would be at the same school, but I wasn't sure if we would be in the same classes, I was glad to have multiple classes with her including english where we sit at the same table, and her name was Haniah Jones. From then on their I met the other students at the group table, I would go to school with, for the rest of my four years at SLA, those students were, Daniel/Dan, Maddi, and Salina. We may have, have different personalities but, we still came together as friends/classmates at school. So what inspired me to do this  we video group project, was our differences, we all have different places we want to be in the future, different jobs, careers, religions, environments, and families, but what we do have in common is a common goal to get somewhere in life and be successful. It doesn't matter what age you are, you could still have goals in life, big dreams about things that you want to do. We are all humans no matter what, and it is basic human characteristics to believe in yourself, and your own self goals. That's what really inspired me about this video, is being dreamers, believers, that we could become anything we want. And since we all believe that, and have goals in life, thats what brings us all together.

What people should know about the video to fully understand it is: We may be different, whether racial, background environments, language and our interest in life. Some of those differences can bring us together as friends, family, acquaintances and classmates. And that should be what anyone learns in life, and what brings anybody together in this world .

What I have learn from this project: From this project I learned that there are things that I didn't even know about my group classmates, but as I asked questions, and wondered why, I found out things about them that I didn't think they would be interested in doing in life. You find out things about people, by going through trials to know who they are.

Artist Statement

In showing my video I hope to show people my video I hope to show that I have always been the happy goofy person I still am today. As you can see in my baby pictures, especially the one with pudding all over my face you can see my silly behavior. Growing up and still to this day I don’t want to be or ever become a negative person. When I was little a lot of time was spent at the beach, like the picture of me playing with the sand and at my grandmothers house. I love my grandmother will all my heart and still to this day look up to how amazing and strong she is. Mama is her name and when i was small she watched my brother and I everyday.

After being that smiley happy little girl, my life changed forever when my parents divorced. To be completely honest I would consider myself a “daddy’s girl” and not having him there with me was very sad. On top of losing him we stopped seeing my grandmother so much because we didn't see our dad all the time and she moved. Living without my dad was hard, but living with my mother was even harder. If I had to guess, I’d say something broke inside her the day they got into that big fight. She became so evil and she never changed, she never will.

In present time I live with my dad and my stepmom and I’m really happy where I am today. I have a wonderful baby brother whom I adore and love seeing his face everyday. Madeline Kelly is a happy person who really enjoys making people laugh, acting like a kid and hanging out with friends and family. I love who I am and what makes me who I am. I’m proud to be me.

In my artist statement i want to express myself my showing the person that I am I can do this by showing the audience my interest ,hobbies , and games I play enjoy all of these because it connects me to my friends. I feel that me playing with my friends can from a connection with them and make us bond together, another interest that i have is playing sports  this also makes me express myself by showing people what i can do and how much i enjoy it for example when i first started playing football i thought I would be bad at it but after i made bonds with my teammates and made me feel comfortable with them and this overall made me better at the game. The last major interest that i have is comics i feel that this is one of my favorite hobbies because every since i was little i always had a love for superheroes and their powers the fact that someone can run faster than the speed of sound or lift up millions of pounds is amazing to me and I always wanted to be like them to conclude my artist statement i wanna say that what we have interest in can make us who we are

We learned about the different ways people express themselves by watching other peoples' Wevideos. Also we learned that there are people in this world that are afraid to express themselves because of discrimination. In our Wevideo our group mainly focuses on interests and hobbies we do the same. Doing this we showed how we related to each other through three different interests and hobbies which are sports, singing, and drawing. We used little clips to show us doing our hobbies. Our video represents which hobbies each of us have in common by showing pictures or videos of us in the  three different sections. 

We decided not to post our group video, but the our individual ones are great, so you can watch them.

Jamire's Statement:

In my Wevideo i express the things in my life that’s most important to me currently and a couple of pictures that show my role models who make me believe my dreams are possibly because their skills were doubted their whole life and their hard work lead them to the NBA. Also you will rarely ever see a picture of me and me taking a picture means there is a important reason I took it or I’m just feeling great a want to take a picture. I believe I showed everything I love currently and don’t believe i really wore the mask in my video.

Darian's Statement:

First, in my self expression video, I start off with clouds to help people understand that in life “the sky's the limit”. We can be and do anything we set our minds to be or do. Next, the video is driving fast to represent how fast life is and that we have to take advantage of every good opportunity that comes our way that helps us in life. Next, are pictures of family and friends who are positive in my life. Last, is the clouds again to remind us to make life the best we can.

In my self expression video I want people to see the real side of who I am. I want them to know that my life is not full of sadness but of happy, enjoyable moments with family and friends. I want everyone to know that all the people in my video show me that there is so much more to life rather than sitting around at home or anywhere else wasting time because that is not life and not the answer to life. You should never just let life pass you by and not strive to learn anything. You should focus on things that will make you think positively and not on things and activities that have no real value because it does not get you anywhere with life and you will miss out on many amazing points in your life that comes your way.

Alejae's Statement:

My individual project is about my life and what I like to do on my spare time. In my project I put my sports, family, pictures of myself, and people that I idolized. Throughout the video you can see that I am very happy and joyful in my pictures. Most of my pictures were taken in the comfort of my home. Some things I had in my video was rainbow looms, movies, trophies, and many other things that I love.

I learned that there are many ways that people express themselves and define themselves. Many people have different hobbies, skills, and interests and lots of people have the same hobbies, skills, and interests. I think that people should not be shy to express themselves it’s just being yourself.

In this unit we learned about discrimination and how people chose to express themselves. By reading the poem “We Wear The Mask” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, we learned and identified how people wear masks to hide their true selves, just so they can fit in. We asked ourselves why people wear masks and if we wear masks in society. We soon found out that people wear masks to hide who they really are in order to fit in with the people around them. When you wear a mask you change who you are as a person. When making the video we learned you should always express who you are.

In this video we showed who we are as people through our hobbies. We showed how we all like doing different things that express ourselves. Also, how these hobbies help us come closer together.

The theme explained in our video is that you can express your true selves  through the things you enjoy doing.

What did we learn in this unit? What new learning or knowledge does this video represent?

We learned that all our classmates are very similar in ways, such as sports and the arts. A lot of our classmates are very talented in drawing, singing, and dance.  We learned about how race impacts our life. We also learned that Christian, Islam, and Atheism were the top three religions in this class. We learned how to define ourselves and how to define each other. In our video we wanted to explain that you can be yourself and never let society pressure you to change.

Summary: What we did in our video was to first show the sports: basketball and football that Shadiyah and Shamir are interested in. Next we showed that Aaliyah wants be an engineer. Then we showed what Ivana and Ashton were interested in, which was art. Lastly we showed how we collaborated. People are individuals. We have our own sense of style and music. People express themselves because humans are social beings, who want to know about other people, and want others to know about them. This is why we speak and write. Sometimes other things, such as poetry, music and drawing, are more effective ways of expressing themselves. Playing sports lets you express yourself in a physical way. There are plenty of opportunities to yell or feel elated when things go well. Team sports allow you to express yourself and combine your energy with others both in verbal and non-verbal ways.  In conclusion , be yourself and don’t let any-one change who you are.

It is important to express yourself because it will let people know who you are and get people to like you. Most of us spend our days walking around with our noses buried in our smart phones. And while we're doing that, we're tuning out the people who are actually in the same room as us. We seem to have long ago crossed the line as to where doing this stuff is appropriate  In this video I showed my life in a 1 min video. My life constants the love I have for bio-engineering , family , my religion and much more. My life is so fun and exciting in the video it should i’m not just a normal student. I usually go to school 6 days a week and 3x the homework for my coding and engineering classes. But its all worth it I always have fun at the end of the day .

Hadja Diallo's artist statement

How have I expressed the complexity of myself in this video? I express myself by being who I am, and being proud of the things I can do, because it doesn’t matter what people think of me, all that matters is me being proud of who I am and who I am about to become in the future!.

In this video I express myself by being confident and proud of who I am. I express myself through my culture because culture is what makes me different. I am a proud  African, I speak (five) different languages  (fullani, French, Mandingo, sosso, and English), they are part of my life because that’s how I connect to my family and friends.

In my video, I expressed the complexity of my personality by included many different types of things that I enjoy and parts of my identity. I used multiple time lapse videos of me playing guitar to express my love for music, flipping through a large book to show how much I love to read, and drawing the solar system to show how much I love science and astronomy/astrophysics. I also included many pictures of me and my friends because they are a large part of my life and have significantly affected me in a positive way. By doing this project, I learned that it is important to express myself truthfully and as comfortably as I can because that way I can friends who know who I am. I learned that there are many people are who are accepting of me for my differences and quirks, even if they’re really weird.

As an artist, I create art to demonstrate the meaning of self expression and freedom. I hope to achieve the gift of attracting someone to explore that art world, who doesn’t like art. My goal when creating art is to do something out of usual or express creativity. I started off thinking art was just for people who loved to draw, but art is for anyone who loves to create the unexpected like me!

Part of my process before I begin any of my art is to think about what I like and to research any type of art that fits this category. The techniques I utilize is if the art form matches a part of my identity.

My current piece I’ve just created is “Fauvism and Natural Hair.” I created the theme of the piece by taking my love for watching natural hair videos on YouTube and how the art form of fauvism is so colorful. I am attempting to show how beautiful and free spirited women with natural hair all. I used various colors because fauvism is known for being full of vivid colors. I made a woman with natural curly hair on one side of my canvas and straight hair on the other. The colors also showed how fierce women with natural hair are.