MY FIRST PLP EXHIBITION!
After weeks of prepping, reading, research, and stressing, the PLP Winter Exhibition was finally here! It was definitely an experience that I won’t forget!
THE PROJECT
First of all, the driving question was: What can we learn from the past, and why does that matter to us today? We were assigned to make and perform a tableau that showed the Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern day worldview through a tryptich. My group was me, Emilia, Chloe, Finnley, Evelyn, and Ian.
Group work can be difficult at times, but I felt like this group worked pretty well together. There are always challenges that come with group work, but I learned that you always have to be patient, kind, supportive, and make sure that you are being helpful at all times. Something that helped was writing checklists of things that needed to be done. Here is one that I made:
At times it felt like we would never get it done, and it would be a disaster. But we managed to pull it off in the end! Keep reading to get a full walk through our final project.
BEFORE THE EXHIBITION
One of the first steps to this projects was our individual medieval and renaissance portraits. That required an art chart for each one. You can read about my medieval art on my other post. This is my renaissance portrait:
With our groups we compared all of our portraits, and thought of ways to blend all of them together to make our tryptich. We then created a digital tryptich for our group, to give us an idea. We also gradually worked on the process of creating scripts, props, and lists. Here is the final digital tryptich:
We also did many rehearsals, and if we hadn’t it would not be good. Rehearsals were tough, because there were so many props, and costumes that we made. That was hard because we only had 20 seconds to set up while one group members reads the script. Here is one of our first dress rehearsals in action (Renaissance)
Now, let’s jump in to the exhibition itself.
THE EXHIBITION
The teachers were preparing us for “Chaos”
It was most definitely chaotic. But we all worked together to set up the gym, roll out the mats, and set up the curtains, so it wasn’t too bad. We all headed down to eat dinner, and fuel up before the big night. (We were there from 3pm to 9pm). It was stressful, because at the last minute one of our group members was sick so we improvised around that. We thought of a good solution in the end. People started arriving, and we were ready (Sort of….). The first show was a bit of a mess, but as the night went on we became professionals 😂. The other challenge was navigating our backstage, because we had SO much stuff.
But we had a good system going eventually. Something that I regretted was not getting photos or videos of us in the actual exhibition, but I will show the photos from the dress rehearsal.
MEDIEVAL
We had to include the seven aspects of worldview into our tableau. Time, society, geography, economy, beliefs, knowledge, and values.
We demonstrated time with the sundial that I am holding, and geography with the map. Society was showed with the king 👑 , economy with the feudal system. For Christian beliefs we showed the cross, and the knights fighting in the crusades. We showed the medieval worldview, and how it was back then. We had all sorts of creative props, and costumes. I was the nobleman holding up the map and sundial. The painter was painting the scene, to show how they captured moments.
Here is our rehearsal video:IMG_9225
RENAISSANCE
The second section of our tryptich was the Renaissance time period, also known as ‘The golden age of inventions.” That is not wrong, and we demonstrated why in our tableau. One of the big inventions was the printing press. We used a desk with a cardboard handle for a makeshift printing press. We also showed the telescope, and a cardboard clock. That shows economy, knowledge, and time. We also had a sun and moon that carried on throughout the whole presentation, for something that didn’t change from the past. We found ways to use some of the same costumes for the medieval and renaissance section. At some point in our presentation, we had to hand out some sort of food, and we chose renaissance biscuits. The lady at the printing press skipped up with her basket of biscuits and offered them. It went well with her character. Once again, the painter was painting the scene.
Rehearsal video: IMG_9230 Please note- we had improved a lot from the the rehearsals. After all, that’s what rehearsals are for!
CONTEMPORARY (Modern)
I found this the easiest time period to re-create because it’s the one I have lived in all my life!
Once again, we showed the same sun and moon to show time. For economy, we had someone holding a shopping bag to show how people spend their money these days. For knowledge, we turned around the printing press to make an office desk with a laptop. To show society, we had the president with a protester. A lot of the audience got a laugh out of how we were showing worldview today, because it is so different from the past. And for the third time, the painter was capturing the scene. Except, this time he was taking a photo, to show how we have advanced so much with technology.
Rehearsal video: IMG_9233
And with that, we concluded our tryptich with a bow!
REFLECTION
I think that we have definitely learned from the past, in both good and bad ways. We need to remember the mistakes that the world has made, and we need to learn from them. This project has taught me so many skills, and bits of knowledge that I will always use in life, and remember. I learned how my worldview connects to a worldview of a person back then. I really enjoyed the group work, because it helped me get to know classmates that I havent really interacted with before. Even though it was very stressful at times, it was also fun to experience what being in a PLP exhibition feels like! Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibition, and getting a feel for the PLP community.