✿ creative projects ✿

creative projects

Over the course of the Fall 2021 semester, we, the students of Critical Inquiry: Straining the Letters into Noise, Direct and Undetectable, Speech, developed personal creative projects focused on a subject of our choosing.

These projects were initially inspired by weekly free writes practiced earlier in the semester, but have since expanded into greater explorations of identity, narrative, language, and ritual, among other themes.

Our collaborative project, Bodily Sensations of Joyful Work, is a manifesto we created inspired by Workaholics Anonymous’s “Working Joyfully" chart that appears in Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade, and the list of Body Sensations that appears in Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication by Meenadchi. We felt it best to display these pieces together on this collaborative site, as they each truly encapsulate joyful work.

Please enjoy.

alice steffler to top ↑

A publication about being kinder in your relationship to your body with the idea that bodies are borrowed among souls.

eight weary lives pdf

a gif of a black and white publication that is 10 pages long, titled the eight lives of a weary body

before the lives... I read somewhere recently of a theory that our bodies are recycled and reused among souls. Our bodies have lived long lives and functioned well for us through each of those lives. The cosmic stardust that makes up their structure is fine, but so incredibly strong as these vessels allowed us to move through life physically and emotionally. As a baby, someone told my mom that I have an old soul (7+ lives lived) and that I am probably living my last life. Here are some of the lives I think my body has lived throughout time.

Be kind and willing to work with yourself to be better for you.

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allie yang to top ↑

good and evil pdf

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creative project pdf

brenae flournoy to top ↑

tldr they colonized bananas

creative project pdf

The first fruit to exist originated in Malaysian jungles, later discovered to thrive in other Southeast Asian countries and Latin America. They take nine months to fully blossom and after their stem is chopped down, a new plant grows from its rhizome, or root clump. Not quite a tree, the herb towers over 15 feet and produces around 200 harvestables. It’s a key factor to the economies of many countries worldwide, including Ecuador, Guatemala, and the Philippines. Hard to believe that fruit could have such a hold on so many lives - providing 500 million jobs, proving vital to many.

It’s hard to believe that one thing, one food has so much power. There’s some hilarity to saying that bananas have power. Though they do have a radioactive amount of potassium - most things have a level of radioactivity, including people. Back when there was one global banana company, United Fruit, they were known for funding coups in other countries.

United Fruit, now known as Chiquita, shorthanded here as UF, began in Boston in 1899. This was before bananas were introduced to America, so they teamed up with Kellogg and PR Superstar Edward Bernays to show Americans that bananas are healthy and go perfectly with Corn Flakes. Later, Sam Zemurray immigrated to America from Russia and sought to create a banana empire by selling the fruit on train lines in New Orleans. He later became a competitor to UF, but was crucial in the instigation of a CIA-led coup on Guatemala’s government in 1954. The country’s first democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz had plans of transforming his homeland economically and socially. Arbenz intended to legalize trade unions, implement fair and free elections, and establish land reform that would grant unused land to Guatemala’s lower-income population. The latter plan, however, did not bode well for UF - they were the ones that owned the unoccupied land. Here I’d like to point out that UF also owned all of Guatemala’s infrastructure, including things like trains and radios, and contributed to 75% of the country’s banana exports. They did not pay their plantation workers in wages but rather in vouchers which could only be used on the plantation. After the CIA overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz, the following 50 years in Guatemala were filled with civil war, narcotics, and residents hoping to immigrate north. Their population is over 20% impoverished, something that could have been avoided if there were proper housing and jobs available about 50 years ago. After the coup, Latin America despised UF and conflated their practices with all American companies’ practices.

Despite the conflict between most of Central America and large banana corporations, bananas remain an incredibly popular export throughout the region. Near the beginning of the twentieth century bananas were Jamaica’s primary export and bananas continue to be a highly exported crop globally. The Banana Boat Song specifically describes the

work ethic and underlying desires of banana farmers in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean. This call-and-response work song was recorded in a variety of ways from musicians Edric Connor, Louise Bennett, and Harry Belafonte. Most recognizable of these 3 would be Harry Belafonte’s, rewritten to include the “day-o” we love to sing. The work song caters to Jamaican farmers, explaining that sunrise indicated it was time to return home because working at night meant avoiding the heat. The introduction of this song to the U.S. worked in Belafonte’s favor, with his rendition of the 60 year old tune charting at number 5 on the Billboard Chart in 1957. We don’t hear about work songs much anymore, but surely they must exist. The Jamaican farmers, other Caribbean farmers, Brazilian, Filipino farmers all have their own song to get them through the day, though is it enough? One can’t help but to think about Chiquita’s history and banishment from certain countries.

From a different perspective, 2008 Youtube series Charlie the Unicorn features the song Put A Banana In Your Ear. The song, presented alongside communist symbols and dancing bananas, posits that the popular fruit is effective in blocking out nonsense when used to plug your “favorite ear.” This is also claimed to improve one’s mood year round, which incidentally parallels the banana’s growing season. In addition to communist symbols in the visual component, we also see a golden pyramid with a banner that reads “Ex Oriente Lux” meaning “from east, light.” This refers to Eastern culture inspiring or influencing the West. Bananas originated in the East and made their way to the West.

While both banana-forward songs intend to uplift and inspire, one key difference is the underlying message. For Charlie the Unicorn’s song, bananas symbolize rebellion and individualism. There’s a reference to their eastern roots and health benefits. Belafonte’s Day-O, however, is meant to be sung while working, a source of motivation, and speaks of the bananas more literally. It also immerses the listener into the fruit’s Western/South American form and its relation to working conditions for farmers. People who may not get to enjoy the amazing fruit they work so hard to grow and harvest. To compare and contrast banana songs is to explore how multifaceted bananas truly are.

The term banana comes from the Arabic word for finger. This has carried over into farming habits, referring to each individual banana as fingers and a single clump of the fruit as hands. Each banana hand has 14 to 20 fingers, and the stalks carry from 9 to 12 hands. Such an excessive amount of hands may lend itself to bananas as synonymous with chaos or a wild reaction. Gwen Stefani famously uses this idiom exclaiming, “This shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!” Stefani adopts a cheerleader persona in her song Hollaback Girl after Courtney Love compares her style to that of a highschool

cheerleader. Referring to the conflict as “bananas” drives home the fact that Gwen couldn’t give a care about Courtney’s weird accusations. It’s also a common colloquialism to hear in reference to something being absurd, out of the ordinary, excessive. Are bananas excessive?

One can be top, or second, banana. One can go bananas. One can claim to not buy green bananas. One may also use the word as a slur towards an American of East or Southeast Asian background. We embody bananas in many ways, through our actions and beliefs. We may also equate going bananas to going ape, an animal which enjoys eating bananas! Apes certainly embody the traits of a banana - unpredictable, radioactive, many fingers. However, apes hardly impact the global economy in the same way.

Bananas are the beginning and the end. They’re global icons, evoking emotion and inspiration. They have influenced so many of us and our day to day lives. There’s no living without bananas.

elora romo to top ↑

A series of 4 mocked up risograph print designs, each with its own poem written on it and an accompanying illustration. The poems capture personal emotions experienced day-to-day throughout the semester.

undone
like laces coming apart,
a broken heart.
tripping over ripped ties,
falling forward
a million times.
you double knot each string
to evade the concrete sting,
pick your feet off the ground
when no one else is around.
then the heartbreak mends,
someone new bends
and ties the loose ends.

burnout
grasping at straws to find
the ideas that once filled my mind,
that ocean once with crashing waves,
now burnt up and dry.
overwhelmed, uninspired,
and just so fucking tired.

home
never felt right as a kid,
no matter how much i’d wish it did.
growing up the word was ever-changing,
pieces of my life constantly rearranging.
then i met you, and now i feel it every day.
when i look in your eyes, i know i’m safe.
i’ve never felt this way before,
but i hope we can be home forevermore.

locket
memories hung by a delicate chain,
intricate details of silver engrained.
keep it forever to remember me here.
we may not know the future in a year,
but i know i’ll be with you anywhere.

erin christoph to top ↑

gabi wood to top ↑

watching the cars go by pdf

hannah hartstein to top ↑

creative project pdf

hiro nishikawa to top ↑

creative project pdf

jayce nguyen to top ↑

you receive a file from an unknown, yet strangely familiar digital presence who has been trying to reach you...

user guide
windows download
mac download

a screenshot of the title screen for the game. the text reads: [file received] unknown_sender

a screenshot of the game, containing white pixelated dialogue on a black background. ???: Oh hey, it's you. I didn't think you'd actually come.

a screenshot of the game, containing two dialogue choices in black pixelated text on large white rectangular buttons. choice 1: who are you? choice 2: I'm not talking with... whatever you are.

lizzy yoo to top ↑

creative project pdf

luis quintanilla to top ↑

leslie mayor xerox pdf

leslie mayor book pdf

spade poster pdf

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shannon baker to top ↑

I spent a lot of this semester writing about and thinking about memories. Where they live, where they can be found, and how memory/stories/narratives can be embedded into objects. And this led me to start considering archives and exploring which objects I encounter every day that could be considered an archive.

This set of 22 CMYK Screen prints are images of things I consider to be Accidental Archives; things that unintentionally act as a record of information, share stories, or act as an account of existence or action in a way that feels archival by nature.

(i.e. A Cemetery being an Archive of lives and deaths, of families, of where someone lived; The library due date cards being an archive of time and places that book has, how popular the book is, or how old; The shortcut Buttons on a radio serving as an archive of someone's interest in music, their recent locations, or the person(s) who has recently driven the car)

10 postcard-sized screen prints scattered across a black background. An oval shaped image of Hollywood Cemetery is on a small print in the middle, surrounded by other various fuzzily printed images.

A gif of 4 prints on a black background, the 2 prints on the left, which have been cut into strips and woven together in a checkerboard pattern, take turns popping up on the screen. On the right two small screen printed images sit stationary.

An image of 22 small screen prints laid out next to each other in a 2x11 grid on a black background.

sophie nguyen to top ↑

creative zine pdf

a gif flipping through scanned images of an 8-fold zine. the cover says “how to be a good friend (to myself)” with doodles in red pencil and cat stickers around it. the rest of the book follows a handwritten sort of step-by-step guide of ideas and rituals that comfort myself collaged with magazine cutouts.

sui aoki to top ↑

credits