What does a Colonizer Look Like?

There are 4 elements at play in the definition of a country as a colonial power over another:

(1) the economic: appropriation of land, exploitation of labor, and control of finance; (2) the political: control of authority;
(3) the civic: control of gender and sexuality;
(4) the epistemic and the subjective personal: control of knowledge and subjectivity.

With regards to the US and Latin America the United States has some hand, if not a full fist, in all of these areas. I have started reading the book The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi. The first section of the book attempts to define and depict the colonizer.

"Today, leaving for a colony is not a choice sought because of its uncertain dangers, nor is it a desire of one tempted by adventure. It is simply a voyage towards an easier life." Memmi goes on to describe the colonizer as one who leaves their country not simply for adventure, because if that was the case why would they not go somewhere among their own country men? "Our traveler will come up with the best possible definition of a colony: a place where one earns more and spends less". As he goes on it descibes the difficulty for a colonizer to leave the colony. After a few years returning to the "slow progress" of home, and more expensive lifestyle is no longer appealing. Additionally the colonizer has laid roots in their new home, and lost roots in their old one. Why should the colonizer then leave the colony, especially when their privilege makes life in the colony easier then it would have been in the home country.

This perspective on the colonizer brings me back to the expatriate community that I saw when I was in Guatemala last January. For the most part the people I met were white US citizens who for one reason or another (primarily political) had decided to leave the United States. While I understand the desire to leave the United States out of frustration, I also feel the need to stay out of loyalty and obligation to my people. One of the fellow students at the Spanish school where I was taking classes mentioned to me that all the expatriates there seemed to be lost. To me the idea of leaving the US in political protest seems to be in vein. First off, no change can come from a few individuals, that were likely to radical for the government anyway, leaving. Secondly, their efforts to escape the US government may as well be void because they have moved to a place that is, in many crucial ways, a colony of the US, or at the very least a place that the US holds colonial power over.

In his book, Memmi describes 3 types of individuals in the colonizer/colonized relationship. They are the colonial, the colonizer and the colonist. The colonial is described as a European (or for our purposes one from the United States) living in the colony but having none of the privileges of their position. "a colonial is a benevolent European who does not have the colonizers attitude towards the colonized", in the next sentance Memmi goes on to say "a colonial so defined does not exist, for all Europeans in the colonies are privileged".

What I am attempting to begin to examine here is what is the role and power that one posses in moving to an expatriate community in Latin America. How can one move in an effort to escape the imperialistic policies of the US while simultaneously re-enforcing that colonialism.

Rough Cut

SO! Although last week was crazy and hectic in terms of editing it all paid off because last Saturday I got to go to NYC for the day and attend the last post-trek meeting with most of the Trek team participants. The movie seemed to go over well with them, and I am excited about finishing it! Anyway, I am using the next week as a time to get feedback on the documentary. If you would like to watch it and provide feedback please let me know and I will give you the password.


http://vimeo.com/7263840



-helyx

Post Trek 2

So as many of you know I fell a bit behind in editing and so this week has been kicking my ass trying to get ready to show the team a rough cut of the piece tomorrow (today) in New York City at the final Post-trek Meeting. I am super excited to show the rough cut and get feedback not only from the team but also from anyone who is interested in providing constructive feed back!

if you want to preview and review the movie let me know!



PS- the tentative Philly premiere date is January 2nd 2010.

Colonialism/Capitalism Journal Writings

We are forever spinning in a world of our own creation
Capitalist Marketing Schemes pulling us farther into spiraling chaos
What choice is there but to keep spinning, or we fall.


Breaking the cycle
Deconstructing our own interactions
how do we see each other
human to human relationships
country to country destruction
is it our place to cross borders
created by our ancestors
destroyed by our governments
why do we do it?


The title of the documentary is El Trompo, which refers to a spinning top, a toy for children all over the world. Personally I suck at throwing them, but Olman would patiently let me try time after time. The spinning, the spinning reminds me of the world, of our lives, of me, and him and Gualacatu and Los Estados.


ALSO
As far as a production update goes:
I am almost done with the trailer (i swear), and am currently working on getting a rough cut of the documentary together by Saturday for Post-Trek 2 in NYC.

I still need help if anyone out there wants to help with:
animation
setting up the US-Latin American Timeline
color correction
music/audio
using the programs motion or after effects

Journal Reflections

Excerpt from a conversation I had shortly after returning from Nicaragua:

me- "My host mom had never heard of the Jews, and when she told us this we asked her if she had ever heard of Hitler and she said no, she hadn't"

someone else- "You'd think that would have come up in a history class..."

...

I didn't really know how to respond to that, my host mom only had a basic first grade education. When she was elementary school age the revolution was happening in Nicaragua and she had to flee to Honduras with her family; and Nicaraguan refugees were not allowed to attend the schools in Honduras. She eventually returned to Nicaragua and at age 18 she took first grade. I am pretty sure that she had her first son when she was 19. She never had a history class.

One of these things is not like the others:

I came back from Nicaragua with 13 and a half hours of footage to deconstruct, capture, and ultimately turn into the documentary component of The Trek Project. While looking through one of my tapes I isolated a few of these stills that brought one phrase to mind, as the song on sesame street goes, “one of these things is not like the others”. This concept comes to mind when I look at footage or pictures of me with the community, despite my feeling quite at home within the community; it is evident that I am still an outsider. I think that is something important for me, and others, to remember when doing work in, or, when creating work about, communities other than their own. Despite my comfort within Gualacatu, I must remember that it is still a marginalized community in Northern Nicaragua and I cannot hope to fully understand life, or the mindsets of the people in this community, my perspective on this entire project still comes from my position as a white, blonde, Jewish, United States Citizen.

HELP!

As you may or may not know on Monday I returned from Nicaragua at the end of a two-week trip where I completed the bulk of the production for The Trek Project (thetrekproject.blogspot.com). The Trek Project is a 3 part multi-media exploration of the way that we (people living in the United States) create and work within communities both at home and abroad. The first part of the project is a timeline of US-Latin American relations that will be incorporated into the final DvD. The second part is a series of Mapping Workshops and Discussions about the concept of global community, responsibility, and accountability.
Due to the fact that it was only possible for me to travel to Nicaragua with the Trek team as a single person the creation of this project, has, up until this point been primarily a solo process. I have had a number of meetings with people to discuss the project and build the concept into what it is now; however, in terms of production I have flown solo. Now I am looking for people who are interested in helping me more directly with the post-production process. I am looking for:

• Help (or continued help) with concept development
• Periodic feedback on cuts of the movie
• Help working on a soundtrack
• Help with Audio post-production in general
• Someone who can show me how to use After Effects
• Help with animation
• Help with checking Spanish-English translations
• Help creating subtitles in both Spanish and English
• Fiscal Sponsorship, or people with a head for fundraising
• Art, by independent artists (visual, digital, written, performed, or musical), that deals with issues of globalization, Latin America, the creation of communities, or any other related issues, to potentially be interviewed, speak about their art who have a piece featured in the documentary.
• Places and/or groups to hold Mapping Workshops with

If you have skills in any of these areas or know someone who does and is interested let me know! Everyone who participates in the creation of this project receives credit and a copy, for certain jobs monetary compensation might also be possible depending on the budget of the project.

***Also, I would absolutely love to have any buildOn students who are interested in the project and want to get involved in anyway.

Thank you for your continued support-

Helyx Chase
HHProductions
HHconnects@gmail.com
thetrekproject.blogspot.com

Back from Nicaragua

Monday evening at about 7 pm EST I arrived in NYC back from 2 weeks in Nicaragua. The Trip consisted of about 4 travel days and 10 days in the community of Gualacatu, North of the city of Jalapa, about a kilometer from Honduras. I come back to the United States with a collection of written, photographic, drawn, and video taped representations of Gualacatu, a community that opened their hearts and homes to a group of 10 high school students from New York and Philadelphia, 2 program coordinators from buildOn, 2 New York City High School teachers, 3 Nicaraguan translators, and 1 videographer. I begin now to put together the writting, drawings, interviews and 13 and a half hours of video footage into the final project, and I begin now to insert pieces of that process into this blog, starting with this excerpt from the journal I kept during the trip:

"What becomes apparent to me as I return to buildOn is that the organization serves 2 purposes. To empower youth and to empower communities" (7-10-09)

What I mean to say here is that there is a dual purpose to the work that buildOn does, which is to balance between the work of spreading education in a global sense community by community, but also to allow very specific youth who are involved with the program in the US to empower themselves through the Trek for Knowledge experience. I know that what I saw in the students who came on the trek at the end of the two weeks was students who were strong, and had been permanently changed by their experience, an experience that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

To the balance between the selfishness and imperialism of aid tourism and the benefit of the work of buildOn is something that I will continue to explore both in this blog and as I move into post-production on the documentary.

Mapping Workshop!

You. Me. World.

A workshop on local and global citizenship



On June 24th from 7:30pm-9:30pm Helyx Chase of HH productions will be hosting a dialog and workshop to support The Trek Project. The Trek Project is a project that will follow students from buildOn (buildon.org) as they travel to Nicaragua to construct a school. The workshop will be a chance to talk about the ways that we see ourselves within the world and also to participate in the mapping project where we will examine the ways that we see ourselves in a global setting.

The Trek Project (thetrekproject.blogspot.com) is a multi-faceted, multi-media exploration of global identity, and citizenship. Filmmaker Helyx Chase (youtube.com/hhthinking) is embarking on this project to create a documentary about how we see ourselves within a global and local community; and how we are accountable/responsible within both of those communities. They will be traveling to Nicaragua this summer and following a group of youth from buildOn after school clubs in the Philadelphia and New York City areas as they build a school in a remote rural village. Ultimately, the maps and discussion generated at the workshop will be included in The Trek Project. While the event is free we are asking for donations to sponsor the trip to Nicaragua and supplies needed while in the country.

Chase is a queer, non-gender identified video maker, social justice activist and youth worker. They are 19; they were born in Philadelphia and raised just west of the city in Upper Darby. Chase, originally Hannah Horwitz, graduated from Upper Darby High School in 2007, with 2 scholarships for media production. They started seriously pursuing video when they were 15 and participated in the Scribe Video Center’s Documentary History Project for Youth in 2005. After the project was completed in January of 2006 they were an active member of Upper Darby High School’s broadcast journalism program.

They have produced multiple short pieces both independently and for classes, the most recent of which is a 25-minute documentary about the ways that women are portrayed in the media and how those images effect girls while they are growing up, it is called "Impacting Girls Influencing Lives". They produce video pieces that promote social justice, queer visibility, youth empowerment, and independent artists. They are heavily influenced by the work of Marlon Riggs and they possess a strong desire to create dialog about issues that are often not covered by the mainstream.



Helyx Chase blogs at HHspeaking.blogspot.com, and can be reached at HHconnects@gmail.com.



7:30 pm at the A-Space on 47th and Baltimore, Philadelphia PA

Constructing a Gaze

How do I set about constructing a gaze and a culture that is not mine? How do I do it with justice and dignity? Do I have a right to do it in the first place? Originally heading into this project I had wanted to figure out a way to secure some sort of small scale projector so that I could screen the footage I had shot and show it to the people in the community and get feedback. As the time until I leave gets closer and the money in my budget slowly slips away I am realizing that this is less and less of a possibility, and so I wonder, how do I still construct this project in a way that is respectful to the people of another country culture and race that I cannot even begin to fully understand.

I know that I do not want my documentary to be fueled by emotion evoking shots of "poor brown kids" who have no power over their image, like so many of the documentaries I have seen about areas in latin america/africa. One of the reasons I have chosen to intigrate animated maps is because this is an opportunity to shift into something that everyone can control how it is being created (the maps that is, not the animation). But I still struggle with the idea that I am traveling into somebody else's space with the intention to document that...

Pre Trek 3 in NYC

(hey, that rhymes)

SO, after much anticipation I was finally able to meet some of the trek team!

This past weekend I attended pre-trek 3 with the New York half of the trek team. I got to see their trek presentations, where everyone on the team took on a different aspect of Nicaraguan culture and created a 10 minute presentation about it. The presentations were great and it was a really awesome way to gain some insight into the way that the youth are thinking. Most of the group is quite analytical and towards the end of the day I was able to run my mapping workshop with them and we had some awesome discussions.

UPDATE!

So I know that it has been a while since I updated, but the end of the semester was pure hell and I am just now recovering and getting back on my feet with this project. So here it is as it stands:

fundraising:
I have about 1200 dollars raised. Which means that I am still about 800 short, I will be applying for a do-something grant but I still need some way to make that up. Also buildOn has requested that I hire a translator to be one-on-one with me in Nica. This will be an additional $300 and so I agree that it is a good idea but it presents another part of the budget that needs to be covered.

the trip:
the dates of the trip are July 6th thru the 22nd, I will be somewhere near Esteli and close to Honduras again, but not in the Ocotal region where I was last time and the village primarily farms tobacco. The name of the village is Gwalacatu (I would love to look into the origin of the name). Because the name does not seem traditionally spanish one of the buildOn staff suggested it was potentially of indigenal origin, although to the best of my understanding there are few strong indigenous communities in that area of Nicaragua. Also I still need to make sure that all my vaccinations and medical things are in order before I go.

mapping workshops:
I completed my first mapping workshop on May 1st at the A-space in Philly and I will be holding my second one this weekend on saturday with the group of buildOn students who are traveling on trek from New York. There is also a third scheduled for the evening of June 24th (the day before my birthday ;-)) in Philly at the A-space again.

zine:
Ok, so this is probably what I am paying the least attention too right now, in the next few weeks I will be expanding on the research I did this semester and start creating a comprehensive timeline of US-Latin American relationships that will be the focus of the zine, which will also serve at the DvD insert. Also in terms of research I bought the Radical Cartography series of essays and maps at food for though books in amherst today and will be reading that to develop language and discourse around the construction of maps. I will be starting with the essay about the following map:




production:
I am rounding up equipment for production right now. Joe Gro, my friend is working on the solar charger and I am officially putting the call out to find low/no cost audio equipment to borrow for the trip because I would hate for the quality of the project to be diminished due to poor audio quality. I also need to order batteries and tapes soon so that I can receive them before I leave on the trip.

Press Release... please forward...

You. Me. World.
A workshop on local and global citizenship

On May 1st from 7:30pm-9:30pm Helyx Chase of HH productions will be hosting a dialog and workshop to support The Trek Project. The Trek Project is a project that will follow students from buildOn (buildon.org) as they travel to Nicaragua to construct a school. The workshop will be a chance to talk about the ways that we see ourselves within the world and also to participate in the mapping project where we will examine the ways that we see ourselves in a global setting.
The Trek Project (thetrekproject.blogspot.com) is a multi-faceted, multi-media exploration of global identity, and citizenship. Filmmaker Helyx Chase (youtube.com/hhthinking) is embarking on this project to create a documentary about how we see ourselves within a global and local community; and how we are accountable/responsible within both of those communities. They will be traveling to Nicaragua this summer and following a group of youth from buildOn after school clubs in the Philadelphia and New York City areas as they build a school in a remote rural village. Ultimately, the maps and discussion generated at the workshop will be included in The Trek Project. While the event is free we are asking for donations to sponsor the trip to Nicaragua and supplies needed while in the country.
Chase is a queer, non-gender identified video maker, social justice activist and youth worker. They are 19; they were born in Philadelphia and raised just west of the city in Upper Darby. Chase, originally Hannah Horwitz, graduated from Upper Darby High School in 2007, with 2 scholarships for media production. They started seriously pursuing video when they were 15 and participated in the Scribe Video Center’s Documentary History Project for Youth in 2005. After the project was completed in January of 2006 they were an active member of Upper Darby High School’s broadcast journalism program.
They have produced multiple short pieces both independently and for classes, the most recent of which is a 25-minute documentary about the ways that women are portrayed in the media and how those images effect girls while they are growing up, it is called "Impacting Girls Influencing Lives". They produce video pieces that promote social justice, queer visibility, youth empowerment, and independent artists. They are heavily influenced by the work of Marlon Riggs and they possess a strong desire to create dialog about issues that are often not covered by the mainstream.

They blog at HHspeaking.blogspot.com, and can be reached at HHconnects@gmail.com.

7:30 pm at the A-Space on 47th and Baltimore, Philadelphia PA

Mapping Workshop

Come join us on the evening of May 1st to support the creation of The Trek Project. The Trek Project (thetrekproject.blogspot.com) is a multi-faceted, multi-media exploration of global identity, and citizenship. Filmmaker Helyx Chase (youtube.com/hhthinking) is embarking on this project to create a documentary about how we see ourselves within a global and local community; and how we are accountable/responsible within both of those communities. They will be traveling to Nicaragua this summer and following a group of youth from buildOn (buildOn.org) after school clubs in the Philadelphia and New York City areas as they build a school in a remote rural villiage. The event will consist of a workshop where we will explore how we see ourselves within the world through the creation of maps. Ultimately, the maps and discussion generated at the workshop will be included in The Trek Project. While the event is free we are asking for donations to sponsor the trip to Nicaragua and supplies needed while in the country.

7:30 pm at the A-Space on 47th and Baltimore, Philadelphia PA

International Outreach Granting Group

I have just been awarded $400 dollars through the International Outreach Granting Group:

"IOGG supports individuals engaged in activities that support international understanding, justice and peace; travel outside one's own country for purposes consistent with Friends concerns. Any project within the United States must have an international aspect to qualify." (http://www.pym.org/pm/more.php?id=1590_0_196_0_M)

This money will be primarily dedicated towards the purchase and creation of the solar charging unit so that I can re-charge my camera batteries while living in the Nicaraguan village.

Thank you to the International Outreach Granting Group!

This brings the total up to- $1120.68

Again thank you to everyone who donated! I am having another event May 1st and everything seems to be going well!

Perceptions, Mapping

If you flip a standard map of the world over it places the two continents that we are least likely to consider prominent in the positions of power. Africa and South America occupy the positions where our brains are used to seeing europe and north america... this is indicative of structures of power and colonialism that were prevalent when the continents of Africa, Asia, and America were "discovered" and these structures of power have carried through into what we see today when we look at dominant discourses in almost all forms of academia.




I want this project to be about mapping, about mapping our own perceptions of the world and the spaces that we occupy. For the next few months I will be collecting maps, most importantly I will be collecting maps from the high school students going on the trek to Nicaragua and the people that we will meet in Nicaragua. I want everyone to draw maps of their worlds as they see them. I will be able to use these maps as a tool to examine self perception, global perception, and ultimately where we place ourselves in the world...

Project Description

The Trek Project:

The Trek project is a multi-facited investigation of communities on a local and global level, and US based thought around the construction of our communities. It consists of a preview project (in a yet to be determined medium) and a longer form documentary that will be shot primarily this summer in Philadelphia and Nicaragua.


Trek Preview Project:

Many times well-intentioned westerners go into Latin American countries to “help” the people in them. This summer I will be following an organization that has built hundreds of schools in developing countries to Nicaragua where a group of high school students will be building a school in a small village. Before I go on this trip to complete the longer form documentary I want to do a promotional and investigative preview by examining buildOn, the organization I will be traveling with. The preview project will be an examination of the ways that the organization functions within the US and the perspectives that they translate into their work in developing countries.

The Documentary:

This part of the project is an investigation into communities that will be expressed in the form of a documentary. I will be following a ‘trek for knowledge’, a program out of buildOn, to Nicaragua. The participants on the trek are members of buildOn, a program that requires its participants to do community service in their own areas in addition to fundraising and cultural education. For many students in buildOn, is the chief buildOn experience is a ‘trek for knowledge’. Trek allows students to bring together the 3 pillars of the buildOn experience (community service, global education, and fundraising), by traveling to one of the buildOn countries, living in a community for 2 weeks and constructing a school. My trek experience changed my life and the way that I see my community. I hope to bring that experience together in this documentary about the ways that we build community both at home and abroad.

Fundraiser Update

SO!

The Fundraiser was pretty good. Didn't really have the attendance I would have hoped for but none the less between the actual event and the call for donations before hand I raised about 600$

remember my ultimate goal is 2000$

so 1400$ to go, but 600$ is a great start!

look out for more events to come, in Philly

I am looking to set something up with the A Space, and Cafe Mocha.

The Fundraiser

Madly Multi-Arts Party to Back Documentary Filmmaker on Saturday, March 14
March 7, 2009, Philadelphia – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
What unites a rapper, a singer/songwriter, three jewelry-makers, a documentary on women in the media, a raffle, a silent auction, and a music video? Stumped? They’re all coming together for an Arts Free-for-All Party to raise money for filmmaker Hannah ‘helyx’ Horwitz’s documentary about American teens in Nicaragua.
All that and more will be happening Saturday, March 14, from 6-9 at Saladworks on the Penn Campus, 3728 Spruce Street, 19104. Lee G the rapper/singer will host and perform, and songwriter Kevin Ricci will sing. Works by artists and jewelry-makers Julia Eckenrode, Lisa Horwitz and Danny Kulp will be offered at silent auction, and Horwitz’ documentary on the impact of media images of women on girls will be shown. Rounding off the eclectic mix will be a raffle of a CD set, and a showing of Sandsnake, a Lee G and Delon music video filmed and edited by Horwitz. In short, the evening offers a madly mixed arts menu making one fun party.
The event is part of a broader fundraising effort to support Horwitz’s trip to Nicaragua this summer with a group of Philadelphia teens who will work with a small community there to build a school. Their trip is part of buildOn, (www.buildon.org) an organization that combines after-school service in teens’ home communities here in the states with raising money and sending volunteers to build schools (295 to date) in developing communities around the world. 13 Philadelphia area high schools are working with buildOn (http://buildon.org/RegionsChapters/USProgramRegions/USProgramsList.aspx) and a group of students from those programs are headed to Nicaragua this summer. Horwitz’s film will document their work and the impact it will have, not just on the community building a new school, but on the lives of the American teens. Horwitz knows this impact well, as she describes her own buildOn experience in Nicaragua at age 17 as “life-changing.” Part of the money will go to fund a solar-powered battery charger to allow her to film in the remote community which lacks electricity.
There is no cover, but contributions will be joyfully received.
Madly Multi-Arts Party Backing buildOn Film
Saturday, March 14, 6-9
Saladworks on the Penn Campus, 3728 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Contact for more information: Hannah ‘helyx’ Horwitz, 610-539-9359, hhconnects@gmail.com