Book of Home project at LaGuardia Senior Center. Public Event 8/31/2021

 


LMCC - Creative Learning Grant

PUBLIC EVENT

 Blog 19 8/31/2021

Today we publicly acknowledged our students’ achievements. We were joined by family and friends, supporters of our work. We welcomed from the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, Linda Hoffman, President and Amanda Forsman, Director of Programs. The Memory Project, storytelling through visual arts, theater and puppetry was founded by Spica and me in 2016 to work with older adults, telling their lives through visual art. Learning from our seniors is rewarding. We believe it’s important to pass on their legacy and are honored to document their stories.

Teaching virtually is both rewarding and challenging. Although we teach them the skills required to make each project, they need time to consider the content, which they happily do for homework. One of the major challenges is not being able to see what each student is doing and as a result we cannot offer them specific help. However, our students face this challenge by problem solving and often teach us a new approach. The virtual platform does allow students to see each step more clearly than perhaps in a conventional classroom and as Maggie Ng, Program Director, LGSC records each session and makes it available to the students via WeChat, they are able to review at their leisure. We are also in regular contact with our students via WeChat and email, offering suggestions, giving support, and acknowledging the photos of their artwork, which they send us.

Students made two books during the 18 weeks of this BOOK OF HOME project. The Accordion Book was inspired by the objects they use every day and gained more significance during these more difficult times of COVID-19 restrictions. We played with color blocking and taught them ways of transferring an image via tracing, using a grid, and making silhouettes. They wrote their thoughts about each of the objects, a couple of words, in verse, a short phrase or a few sentences. The Pop-Up Family Album was inspired by their family photos. They learned a variety of techniques to create pop-up images such as how to make V fold stands, extended pages, background and foreground, inverted folds, pockets, Key Words, and surprise elements. They documented significant moments of their life using these elements. 

Spica created two videos showcasing each students’ work. Accompanied by music, we all enjoyed watching images of the Accordion Books and Pop-Up Family Albums. Each student selected 1 page from either book and shared their story. Chi chose a page from her Accordion Book which featured her and images of mountains. She shared how much she loves traveling and what it teaches us. Alice chose a page from her Pop-Up Book, documenting a trip she took with her husband and son. As they have both now passed, she treasures the memory of this special time in her life. Hilping chose to tell the story of her trip to Dubai in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, through her Accordion Book. Unable to cancel the trip, it opened her eyes to the world. Sam Sam wrote a poem in celebration of the New Year, which she shared in a page of her Accordion Book. Bo Fung’s Accordion Book reflects her cheerful character and the pleasure she gets from travel and being with friends and her dog. Lily’s Pop-Up Book page honors the memory of her father who was a manager at the China Lane Restaurant. As a child she told her friends her father went to parties all the time as his job, because she saw him going from table to table asking the patrons, “is everything ok?” By documenting her family history, she also came to realize its importance. Situ chose a page of her Accordion Book which documents the time we are living in, masking, hand sanitizing, lockdowns. Yu Lan enjoys dancing and used her Pop-Up Book to document the dance group of which she is currently a member and the memory of high school dances. 

Maggie thanked us for empowering the students and noted what a great time they had attending our classes. Spica and I want to express our gratitude to NYFSC for offering us this wonderful opportunity and the LMCC for awarding us the Creative Learning grant which funded our project. Congratulations to all our students! Keep on creating.

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