Portfolio Project # 3

I handed this out earlier, but just in case you missed it. The deadline is coming up!

Portfolio Project # 3
Ethics and Essential Choices

Deadline:
Monday, November 17: completed project, with 2–3 page, word processed, Artist Statement reflecting on the production and purpose of the project.

Purpose:
To demonstrate creatively your understanding of what’s at stake in making ethical and essential choice within the worlds of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Caro’s Whale Rider, and in your own life.

Criteria:
Your work will be evaluated based primarily on how well you document the process of creating the work, and well you can reflect on and articulate that process, and not on the quality of the piece as an artwork per se.

Your piece should demonstrate evidence of careful thought and planning; originality and risk- taking; organization and focus; attention to detail; and respect for an audience of your peers. If you choose to work collaboratively, your project will be evalauted in the context of principles and practices for effective, creative teamwork.

You will of course have ample opportunity to revise your portfolio piece and the accompanying Artist Statement for the final submission of the portfolio.

à You should choose a medium different from the one you selected for the first two portfolio projects. Thus, if you gave me a short story for the first or second project, do not give me another short story for this piece!

Collaboration:
Topics 1, 2, and 4 may be approached collaboratively; the maximum number of people who may collaborate on a given topic is indicated. You will be neither advantaged nor disadvantaged should you choose to work collaboratively. If you do choose to work with a group, your collective piece will be reviewed as a team project (this means that if two people work on a project, it should be clearly twice the production of the same piece done by an individual), and you must carefully document and reflect on the specific processes of your collaboration in your individual Artist Statements. In short, the members of a group must each turn in his or her own individual Artist Statement.

Topics:
Option One [max. 4 people]: Create a short (say, 8–10 minute) news segment that reports on a court case in which Okonkwo is tried for the murder of Ikemefuna (or some other crime, if you choose). Your report may be done in the style of a televised news program like 20/20 or Dateline (in which case you should turn in a DVD of the edited report) or a radio news program as on National Public Radio (in which case you should turn in an audio recording of the edited report). Your newscast should probably involve some background information provided by the reporter, as well as interviews with relevant parties: the prosecution and/or defense, maybe Okonkwo himself, perhaps a member of the jury. These discussions should reflect a careful and nuanced understanding of the ethical choices faced by Okonkwo; “interviews” of the two legal teams should present the various viewpoints in some detail. You should as much as possible focus on the values, attitudes, and/or beliefs that inform the various parties’ arguments. The large question your news segment should be striving to answer is “Why does it matter?”

Option Two [max. 4 people]: Things Fall Apart ends tragically, while Whale Rider ends on an upbeat note. What would have happened, however, if the protagonists of those stories had made different decisions? Author an alternative ending for either Okonkwo’s or Pai’s story. You may use any medium (film, prose, comics, etc.). Make sure to provide some context for your new ending so that we know where your new ending departs from the original story. The focus should be on the crucial differences between the “original” character (i.e., the Okonkwo created by Achebe, the Pai created by Caro) and the “new” one. What values, attitudes, or beliefs are different in the “new” Okonkwo or Pai that cause him/her to make (a) different decision(s)? You should also show the consequences of that/those different decision(s). Is the character, or his/her family, community, or society any better off?

Option Three [max. 1 person]: Create a work in any medium (which you haven’t already used) in which you relate an ethical or essential choice or dilemma from your own life or from current events to Things Fall Apart or Whale Rider or both. You may do this through comparison (i.e., elements that are the same) or contrast (i.e., elements that are different) or both. You do not have to choose an event that parallels Okonkwo’s or Pai’s (or Koro’s—the grandfather’s) situation explicitly, but your project should draw some connections between the decision-making process in the story or event you choose and the decision-making process in TFA or WR; in particular, you should discuss how values, attitudes, or beliefs contribute to the ethical decision in each case. Please note that it is NOT enough simply to describe a difficult decision you had to make; an ethical (or essential) choice such as those that form the crux of this unit of the course involve a conflict or disharmony of moral principles. While you need not choose a dilemma of the sort we discussed in class, you should choose a situation in which the decision and its consequences have profound implications for the decision-maker and his/her family, community, and/or society.

Option Four [max. 2 people]: Compose and record two songs: (1) a protest song, speaking as an Ibo resisting colonialization and Christianization; and (2) an anthem, speaking as a colonialist bringing Christianity and British rule to the Ibo. The lyrics of both songs should clearly convey the values, attitudes, or beliefs of each group in this particular situation. The music does not have to be “authentic” or stylistically appropriate to Africa or Great Britain in the 1890s; in fact, avoid musical caricature (as this is often more offensive than it is illuminating)—in short, do not try to create a “tribal”-sounding song. Parodying Gilbert and Sullivan operettas is fine, should you choose to do so.

A NOTE ON THE ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Please keep in mind what your Artist’s Statement should contain. It should discuss the process of creating your project, and while it should address some of the logistics of the process, it should spend at least as much time discussing the more intellectual and artistic questions that arose. While your Statement can and should find its own questions to answer, here are three to get you started, three questions that all Artist’s Statement should address in some fashion:
1. State clearly what the message of your project is;
2. Articulate why that message matters (i.e., What’s at stake?);
3. Explain how—if at all—you expect your audience to understand that meaning from your piece.