Friday, June 19, 2009

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

Monday, June 15, 2009

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...

Thursday, June 11, 2009

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.

Monday, June 1, 2009

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.