PLP Winter Exhibition Reflection Blog Post:
The PLP winter exhibition was the showcasing of many projects that we have been working on for the past few weeks. The project was based around the sci-fi fantasy movie called Avatar created by James Cameron. Our project was to create a box, that represents an aspect brought from Avatar, and then present it to viewers in one big gathering.
The Box:
The project that the grade 8s were responsible for making was a diorama box, that represents one of four aspects that are corporate greed, militarism, the conflict between humans and nature, and racism. All these themes are represented in James Camerons fantasy sci-fi world of Avatar, which is a movie filled with a complexity of all these things, and is why the project is derived from this movie. I chose to base my box on corporate greed, and it showed Unobtainium (the rare ore found on Pandora that is the militaries main motivation for conflict with the Nav’i people) being taken out of a clearly effected Nav’i environment on a conveyor belt and being brought into a factory.
On the other side of this factory, is the military side, and the conveyor belt comes out of the other side of the factory, which has money on it. This gives the elusion that the unobtainium is being turned into money. It is a metaphor to the fact that authorities will do things and ignore the consequences and impact of what they are doing for the prospect of wealth and money.
I used mostly cardboard as well as real foliage, rocks, army soldiers, Lego, paint and small household items like buttons and string. I was super satisfied with the way it turned out, and it had the right amount of detail in order to get my point and theme across without distracting from it. I was also satisfied that by adding objects on to the conveyor belt in a way that suggested the conveyor belt was in motion, my diorama did just that, and did in fact work just as well as a real working conveyor belt.
The exhibition:
The Winter Exhibition was a large gathering held at Seycove Secondary School, and was completely orchestrated by students, with the purpose of showcasing many projects which concepts differentiated between grades. The food, games, decorations and projects were all created by students, and setting up the exhibition was done after school until the exhibition started, at about 5:00. At times it was extremely chaotic and unorganized, but it all came together in the end and we were ready.
After 5:00, it took a bit longer for people to start arriving in our room, as it was near the back of the school, but after people started arriving, the flow of people ceased to stop all the way until the exhibition closed at 9:00 PM. Needless to say it was exhausting, and I felt like I had said my pitch thousands of times, but I felt like I had done an effective job and my box worked to convey what I wanted it to. It definitely prepared me for exhibitions to come, it being my first ever PLP exhibition.
Overall, I can look back on the experience from an optimistic perspective because I learned a lot, it felt satisfying to showcase and present a workpiece and concept that has taken lots of time, and effort and it was generally a great experience.
What And Why I Learned From This Experience
This experience was long, and very different from anything I had ever done before, so as a result, I
Learned a lot. Regarding the Exhibition, I learned that being enthusiastic about your project, and standing beside your audience as opposed to behind your box is more inviting to them and will probably get your project more attention. I also learned to not over explain your project, but to stick to key points, and to explain it a little differently or in different words to each person for the sake of variety, and for my mental health so i am not repeating the same thing for three hours.
Another thing I learned was that not everyone will come to your box, and although many people did, some people wont, and that it really doesn’t matter. Regarding my box, I learned how important lighting is, and next time if I have a project similar to this one, I will incorporate lighting inside or around the project. I also learned that for setting up the exhibition, you really got to rally because you don’t have that much time, and how important it is to keep an organized log of who’s bringing what whether it’s decorations, food, supplies or games.
I also learned how important It is to bring your supplies to school from the very start, because utilizing the class periods that are there for creating your project is extremely necessary. You also want to bring lots of supplies, because its better to have too much than too little, and I encountered people in my class who had this problem. Generally I can look back at what I learned in that it will help prepare me for my next exhibition!