Younglife + FYS Visual Research
One thing I have been inclined to learn more about over the course of my time at Belmont is the ways in which religion can respond to social climate and change. Additionally as a Younglife leader, I always want to make sure I am educated on things that may affect the kids I am ministering to. High school aged kids now are far more exposed to social issues, and it is my job to be a role model and guide for them, ultimately pointing them towards Christ. However, I can’t deny the issues seen facing the world today when it comes to religion. My first year seminar visual research project, therefore, was really eye opening for me. My topic was “Racism and Christianity”, which eventually led me to explore lots of issues related to injustice and how they are handled within religion. This project gave me a new perspective on the privilege I have as a follower of the Jesus I often see my race represented in. I had never thought about the lack of representation of other ethnicities through common depictions of Jesus. It was an extremely humbling experience to learn of a new way to define inclusion in terms of a relationship with Jesus, which is ultimately what we strive to tell our high school friends about. This learning experience provided me new ways to love others well, not limited to my Younglife kids, and it also gave me a new avenue in which to learn more about and grow deeper in faith.
Reading + Architectural Folly
I have always loved the way reading can expand your imagination and sometimes be an escape from the real world. It has been really interesting to see how this love of mine has manifested itself into my college life through being an architecture major. In many ways, I have found that the principles we are being taught and projects we are given to iterate through can push the boundaries of my imagination just the same. So, when given the prompt to design an architectural folly for an author of my favorite genre, the booklover in me was really excited. This is where I started to see what I was designing, and the things I liked, or considered “my style” outside of school, coming together. For example, having used the “melancholy” genre or style of books I love to read as inspiration for my architectural folly in foundations. It was so fun to synergize my interests outside of school with my design, and I feel like that process, in a way, was a deep dive into my own brain. The outcome was something I was not only proud of and that I saw some of myself in, but something that also taught me new ways to explore a story.
Family + Pavilion Project
Through my family dynamic, as well as my pavilion project in studio 1, I feel I was able to learn a lot about myself in growth and change. My tendencies as an oldest child of three have caused me to take a very straightforward, rational approach to life, whether that showed itself through being a role model to my siblings, or if it was being the guinea pig to my parents. This only started to change once I was really getting into my architecture focused classes that pushed me to think less conventionally. I feel that throughout my time in college, the two experiences, one still evolving and changing, and one having only lasted around two months, have balanced one another well and served me in my learning habits. Additionally, my family has always supported me in my interests and passions, so it has been really rewarding to see the ways I have been impacted by that support in my academic endeavors. The lessons I took from the pavilion project, like how to tell and story and iterate through things, are things I feel like I had slowly been learning all my life through my relationships with my family. Through this connection, I have found such beautiful synergy between the person I had become through my upbringing, and the parts of me that are beginning to change and grow through designing and learning about architecture.