MN GCE Portfolio

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My 12 Hour Project: Unfinished Work

- May 17, 2019

In every person's life, each person is presented with a challenge. When faced with that challenge they must surrender or endure. For my class Endurance, we discussed and studied how others have endured challenges great and small. For our first project, each of us decided upon a mission for ourselves. The mission I set for myself was to become a better artist. For this project, we had to dedicate 12 hours to our mission and document the process. I spent my time working on one painting and it was both easier and harder than I expected it to be. I have worked on a number of paintings in my life and going into this I was already aware of the mental blocks that come with creating art. The greatest challenge of this painting was the size and scope I set out with. With a 4x7ft canvas and 6 figures in the composition, I started to regret my ambitious planning. I am also unhappy that I was unable to finish the painting in 12 hours, though it was not a surprise. I am planning on finishing i

The Future King

- March 24, 2019

This is my second and final action project for my humanities course, called Equality. In the first unit, we studied the history of inequality. For the first action project, we created a chapter of a history book, telling the story of a relatively recent event through the perspective of an oppressed or underrepresented community. If you would like to see that project click here . Transitioning into the next unit, we concluded the history portion of the class and studied and discussed inequality in America today. For this action project, we were tasked with creating a newspaper article, covering a topic related to equality and an event marking the progress made in 100 years. I chose to write about the first gay king of England. The Issuu below is my article, I hope you enjoy.

The Election of 2016

- February 28, 2019

This is my first action project for my humanities course, Equality. In this class, we discussed different kinds of oppression and privilege. We started by studying racism, specifically in United States history and how the way racial discrimination has evolved over time. Starting from the first slave to arrive in America in 1619 to the structural racism of today's prison system. We also talked about race bias and white privilege. In this part of the unit, we watched the Oscar-winning movie BlacKkKlansman, a well done, honest and timely film. Watching it as a part of this class was fitting for the curriculum, but it was also something that was important for us to watch even if it hadn't been in for a class. From there we shifted to the topic of sexism, gender roles, and fragile masculinity. As a class, we generally discuss these heavier topics rather well in our own way and throughout this class that was a constant pattern. However, this part of the unit on gender and sexism is w

Pride On The Sidewalk

- January 18, 2019

This is my second action project for my humanities course, Global Peace. For this project we were tasked with picking an issue to act on through a form of peaceful protest. The paper and presentation below is the summation of my research, my action and my purpose. Pride Flag, Wikicommons (2005) In today's world, young LGBT people feel alone. The lack of representation and recognition in the media and minimal at best protections from discrimination. A few small steps have been made towards addressing systematic oppression, but not much has been done to address what is known as cultural violence. Cultural violence is the unspoken stigma of a community or society that can establish, normalize and justify oppression. It is part of the bedrock that sparks direct violence, a specific incidence or an act harming a person or group of people. Direct violence targeting the LGBT community is a norm hardly ever addressed by the traditional mainstream news outlets. This complete disregar

A Hero Wiped From History

- December 21, 2018

In today's world, we are facing so many seemingly insurmountable conflicts. On a daily basis, there is a new story about another injustice. Rife with war, corruption, and hate, it is hard to imagine that there could ever be an end to it. While there is no one quick fix or cure-all way to solve all problems, there are a number of ways to view these issues, better understand their causes and how to address them. In my Humanities class, Global Peace, we studied different forms of non-violent protest. Before understanding how to be non-violent it is important to establish what is violence. When simplified, there are 3 kinds of violence, cultural, social and direct. Cultural violence is the unspoken stigmas of a community or society that can establish, normalize and justify violence and oppression. Cultural violence is part of the bedrock that creates structural violence. Structural violence is harm from a formal institution, government or any other body of power that targets and oppre

John Oliver: A New Take On The News

- October 12, 2018

Sound, whether it be in the form of music, a podcast or radio, is a powerful media. Without the distractions of visuals video has, or the ambiguity of solid text or photography, sound can perfectly summarize the intention, emotion, aesthetic and voice of any story. For my Journalism class, a humanities course, we each selected an influential voice that has made an impact on our own lives, the people around us and others around the world and create a podcast about them. The voice I chose was John Oliver, a British writer, comedian, and host of the HBO show Last Week Tonight . For each episode of his show, he focuses on a single topic to dive deep into. Rather than only picking the most obvious headline to talk about he picks more underlying issues that are arguably more important to learn about than the surface level play by play of a series of current events. His show and how he covers stories has had an impact on a multitude of levels, from how people get their news to what qualifies

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