Persistent Visions

Erika Tan
15 October 2009 12 February 2010 3F South Wing Gallery Fine Arts and Art Studies Themes: Subjectivity Perspective on self and other Projection of self Othering in the arts Guide Questions: 1. How are the colonizers and the colonized represented in the film and photographs? 2. How does representation in Lunas Picnic in Normandy and Alvarez Dizons Day Begins differ from the film and photographs? 3. How does art in general reinforce or contest the self/other binary? Activity: Students will visit the Persistent Visions exhibit with the guide questions in mind. At the end of the visit, a class discussion will be facilitated to discuss the students insights on the questions. Students can focus on a particular image on the video or photographs. After the visit, students can write a reflection paper about a particular painting and how it depicts a sense of self and other. Anthropology and Sociology Themes: Subjectivity Perspective on self and other Projection of self Guide Questions: 1. How does the colonial archive, as a repository of ethnographies, reinforce the self-other binary? 2. What are the issues involved in the use of the camera as a tool for ethnographic research? How is it complicit in the construction of authenticity? 3. In what ways does the colonizers projection of self differ from their representation of the colonized in the images? Activity: Students will visit the Persistent Visions exhibit with the guide questions in mind. At the end of the visit, a class discussion will be facilitated to discuss the students insights on the questions. Students can focus on a particular image on the video or photographs.

Vargas Museum Educational Guide

Persistent Visions

Page 1 of 2

After the visit, students can write a reflection paper about how the encounter with the images in the exhibition affected the way they construct the colonial past in their memories.

Mass Communications Themes: Subjectivity Perspective on self and other Projection of self Stereotyping Guide Questions: 1. How did the technologies of film and photography contribute to the agenda of various colonizing missions? 2. How are the colonizers and the colonized represented in the photographs and films? 3. In what specific ways do the images in the film and photographs contest the idea that the camera is objective and truthful? Activity: Students will visit the Persistent Visions exhibit with the guide questions in mind. At the end of the visit, a class discussion will be facilitated to discuss the students insights on the questions. Students can focus on a particular image on the video or photographs. After the visit, students can write a reflection paper about a particular film, television show, music video, or other popular media that portrays stereotypes of the East and West. Library and Information Studies Themes: Subjectivity Perspective on self and other Othering in archives Guide Questions: 1. How does archiving, as a process, reinforce or contest the self/other binary? 2. How does the privileged position of the archive as a source of legitimate history affect knowledge-making? 3. In what specific ways does mediation happen in archives? Activity: Students will visit the Persistent Visions exhibit with the guide questions in mind. At the end of the visit, a class discussion will be facilitated to discuss the students insights on the questions. Students can focus on a particular image on the video or photographs. After the visit, students can write a reflection paper about their encounter with an archive and how the experience affected the way they perceive things.

Vargas Museum Educational Guide

Persistent Visions

Page 2 of 2