Here are some of our personal experiences as we created this project. We hope to provide background on what we experienced from the start of this class through to the final presentation to provide where we struggled and our thoughts on the information we gathered.
Picky Professionals
Josh Adesina
One of the things we have learned about reaching out to professionals is that they are quite picky. We imagined that reaching out to professors at post-secondary institutions would be an easy task. We were wrong.
Since the beginning of our project we have reached out to professors from Ryerson University and Humber College. Several of them have showed some enthusiasm and replied. However, some of replied and given us more work to do before giving us the go ahead. Considering that fact that we have tonnes of work that demands most of our time, it seems even more stressful that professors are asking us to do more work. It has been interesting to see how academic professionals have been responding to us thus far. I guess we were probably wrong to assume that it would be easy.
Moving forward, we have an idea of how professors/lecturers will respond to our interview requests. We also have a better understanding of how academic professionals carry themselves.
The Never Ending Search
Devon Momy-Gamache
When a group is holding a fundraiser, and trying to raise awareness for an event on a small campus you would assume it would be easy to contact them. Well you know what they say about making assumptions. In the continuing theme of our struggles so far, the contacts have been a struggle to communicate with.
It all started out with the quick search leading to Fashion for Freedom’s Facebook page which proved to be a dead end. From their I began to try and search through various pages on the university website hoping to stumble upon on something which also resulted in no results. An old story form a previous event mentioned the name of the person running the previous year’s event which lead to a Facebook message to see if they were still running it. After discovering the names of the current organizers more messages were sent. After that resulted in no response’s further searching had to be done leading to an email address which also lead to no response.
At this point I’m feeling like a private detective trying to contact these girls relying on friends from the Sputnik to eventually get a phone number. Hopefully now an interview can be planned as well as free entry into the event on Friday.
Flash Photography
Devon Momy-Gamache
On the rare occasion I am required to take photo's, I quickly remember that i have a terrible memory. After taking an entire course on how to take photo's, it is still an adventure every time I have do so.
Going to Fashion For Freedom last Friday (Jan. 20) was a great experience and was definitely an interesting experience to see a bunch of fashion designers show off their clothes as well as some dance performances from various groups. The only problem was from the moment I took my first picture I knew I was going to have an interesting night messing around with settings. I got a little lucky having a friend there who is a professional photographer so after bugging him on multiple occasions, sorry Alex, I finally got some good pictures and figured out how to keep the flash off so I wouldn't distract anyone.
I still have to interview Nicole and Devyyn but it looks like this section of the project should be finished for the most part.
Professional Deception
Josh Adesina
I was able to land interviews with two professors that teach at Ryerson University. They both agreed to participate in an interview at the campus on Monday (Jan. 20.) The confirmation of the interviews made me feel good about the progression of our project, but the results brought me back to reality.
The journey to Toronto was smooth besides me realising that my video camera didn't have a memory card inside of it. Apparently students have to use they own memory cards for video cameras they borrow from the school. I found this interesting, and at the same time, frustrating because I have always found a memory card inside the video cameras I have borrowed in the past. In short, that morning did not go smooth for me. However, the journey to Toronto was.
After battling through the cold, myself and Devon managed to located our first subject at the seventh floor of the student. I've always been a little wary around elevators, but the ones at Ryerson really tested my patience. We waited for 15-20 minutes for an elevator. We would have gotten where we needed to be a lot faster if we climbed the stairs, but I convinced myself waiting for the elevator was a smart idea. I was wrong, and will be wrong until something is done to improve those elevators. You would think all of that tuition money was being put to good use.
Once we got to the seventh floor, there was a section that had doors and it required student identification to open. Devon tried entering the doors after a student opened it, and an alarm went off. I decided not to enter the doors because I didn't want to give the impression that I wasn't a student, and because students that were trying to study gave me a look of frustration. In the end the professor came out and opened the door for us, and we proceeded with the interview. I was pleased with how this interview turned out. However, we were in for a surprise for our second interview.
Finding the other professor's office was irritating. He also decided not to stand outside of his office to make things easier for us, which was even more frustrating. After finding his office myself and Devon thought to ourselves 'we can finally get this over with'. I brought out my video camera and the professor said "Oh. Are you going to record this interview?" I said "yes" and then that is when it began.
He lectured us about how we weren't allowed to record him or any students due to Ryerson's consent policies. He also asked us more questions about our project after asking me to give write him a proposal, which I assumed would be enough. The whole time I was thinking "why the hell didn't you tell us this in the email?" I told him that we would be recording him, and he made us come all that way to hear him tell us a load of nonsense? Myself and Devon were insulted and left his office in disappointment.
As we ventured back to Brantford the success of the first interview was what kept me in a good mood. I still don't understand why he didn't email this information to me.
Final Touches
Devon Momy-Gamache
The last week or two has seen everything being put together and organized on the website. We've been busy editing videos, conducting multiple interviews and overall determining what we have so far. I must admit I've been pleasantly surprised with how well it all came together and how nice it looked.
It took a lot of hard work to get everything together and make everything fit together but seeing the initial site all together definitely feels good and is something that I think all three of us are proud of.
As much as we have added we have more to add and more planned to go on the site and continue to improve on what content we already have to perfect it. More interviews, videos, and research are on deck for the next couple of weeks as we put the final product together with the hopes of showing where the line is between appreciation and appropriation and how it truly is different based on who you ask.
Concluding Thoughts
Devon Momy-Gamache
Going into this I thought cultural appropriation would be a super sensitive topic in which people would be more than willing to voice their displeasure with the trend. I assumed we would come across some people with the view that it’s a global world and that fashion is something should be shared with people around the world.
Surprisingly the opposite turned out and most people were okay with sharing cultural trends with people around the world and saw no problem with taking form others as long as it was done in a tasteful way. This was my line of thinking heading into the assignment with the belief that if it was done tastefully and with respect towards people from that culture than it is okay to wear their fashion.
In my opinion if a person knows about the piece and knows that people from the culture would not be offended then it is okay. This project has revealed to me that simply knowing is not enough anymore since it could still be deemed offensive even if that wasn’t the intention.
Design Notes
Fiery Emotions
While I was recording the S.O.U.L discussion with Matt I heard a lot of interesting opinions in regards to cultural appropriation. A lot of the S.O.U.L members were giving perspectives that made a lot of sense, and it made me think deeper about how oblivious people were towards cultural appropriation.
A lot of the opinions I heard only validated what I had already thought about cultural appropriation. They were really passionate about the issue. Also, they were talking as though nobody had listened to them before. It was both intriguing and disturbing. I was intrigued because it moved me to see how engaged and passionate they were. I didn’t expect to see that much emotion from them due to the fact that it was all for a school project. I was surprised. On the other hand, I was disturbed because they were saying things that bothered me. It would seem as though people would be informed about cultural appropriation, but after the discussions I was reassured that it was a serious issue.
I do not believe anyone can justify cultural appropriation in any form – especially within fashion. Although I learned a few insightful things about cultural appropriation after this discussion, I cannot say that my position on cultural appropriation has changed. This is due to the fact that I had a similar perspective to the SOUL members.