MDRW 11 - Drawing and Symposium Planning

This week, MDRW students started the week with a writing assignment in the Intermediate Theory and Methodology course, taught by professor Hiie Saumaa. Students were asked to create an annotated bibliography, consisting of three primary or secondary sourced texts they will use within their thesis. Students also discussed the symposium they are currently planning, and the design team created an official flyer for the event.

To learn more about the symposium, or to get involved, click here.

Tuesday and Wednesday MDRW students had the second week of their workshop with artist Eric Vernhes. During these two days, students were encouraged to go out and film blindly. Then, they would create drawings in response to those videos.

Vernhes showed students the beginning of Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film Persona, and asked students to create a video in response to the film. In this video, he wanted students to draw and take photos during the process, to be able to see the evolution of the drawing, and at the end, to place them together and to change the speed to create an animation type video. Vernhes pulled the soundtrack from Persona and encouraged students to use the soundtrack and to even create a film based on the sounds.

Thursday, some MDRW students had the Professional Networking Series course. This week’s guest was Keithley P. Woolward, an Advanced Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of The Bahamas in Nassau, Bahamas. He spoke about how where we, as individuals, come from ends up shaping us and our life paths.

He asked students to reflect on their lives, artwork and who their audience might be now and in the future. He gave an incredibly insightful lecture about his own life, struggles, and accomplishments and helped students understand that there is not one set path to follow, and how it is never too late to start a new path or challenge.