Week 8 — Art Activity — Student Choice, Part 1
My little project will be centered around Language and Culture. I would sometimes like to express myself in different languages, or celebrate their associated culture from time to time like events trying to replicate Ancient Roman life as much as possible for example. Some like to do this by filming and creating movies reflecting Roman or Greek life. Some like to reenact battles!
In my piece, I want to show a decorated journal featuring an extinct language–Gothic. This language comes from an eastern germanic group that generally existed from around the 3rd to 8th century AD. Fun fact: They also played a factor in the fall of the Roman Empire. I plan to also combine some Spanish and English onto the writing, in which are languages of my daily life. All languages will collaborate saying what I do in my daily life. I will also include drawings on the corners of the pages to reveal Gothic art.
The reason for this piece is to bring attention to the general existence of the Goths, and my attempt to bring it to my existence. I want to either keep history alive, or help keep their memory–their language, art, culture, and religion in the most original form that I could find, as they underwent many influences as the centuries passed. To me, it feels like there is so much mystery, lack of certainty, or missing information about this huge group of smaller tribes. What we at least certainly have left is their language, and also happens to be one of the only aspects that I love most. I don’t want to come off as pretentious, nor trying to be, but what I love about language is that it admires diversity and that we can acknowledge how people in the past sounded like at the comfort of our era.
What I will need for this art piece:
- My Journal
- Watercolor Paint
- Golden Pen
- A Calligraphy Pen or a Pen that has a similar effect
- Knowledge on the Gothic Language (I joined a Gothic Server that supplies resources the language, and I’m surrounded by experts! We’re even trying to revive it!)
- Tons of resources such as books and files describing history and their art styles and artifacts via museums.
I have done a lot of research about the Goths, but I feel that I would need to do extensive research to pinpoint unique features, and if possible, Visigothic features (the branch that i’m focusing on). Another concern is time as I must get familiar enough with Gothic to write my every day life.
