CPS WK 7 Character Place and Events

By Rachael Thompson

NOTE: Original images are creative commons licenced (sourced online - except for the illustration, which I drew) and combined in Photoshop. Original seal and seal and beach image is by

by Ruth Hatnup, 2016 ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruthanddave/28758813626 )

Theme:

Character, Place and Events

Method:

Illustration/collage (see below images 1 'Seal in yoga class' and 2 'Yoga pupil in seal colony')

Context:

Films in which characters switch bodies or minds to experience an alternate reality highlight many things. One of these things is how appearance, age, or race effect how we're treated by others  - and subsequently how this effects our choices and reactions. Another point these films may highlight is how easily we can misunderstand unfamilar contexts, or be misunderstood by others in unfamiliar environments.

Examples:

Get Out  (2017 film) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRfnevzM9kQ

Big (1988 film ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCmyX6CYhI0

The Swap (2016 film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swap_(2016_film)

Response:

A seal and a yoga pupil try swapping places. While they do not swap brains or bodies and then try to blend into their envionments like in the above movies, this concept aims to to highlight how much the seal and the yoga student's (see separate image) native environments are a part of their normal characters and actions.

Hopefully this also provokes:

1. Our imaginations: What challenges would a seal have in a human world/yoga class? Does it think it's human? Does the yoga student think he's a seal? And does he realise his 'cobra pose' is actually a fighting stance in seal terms and that he's about to face off with a male elephant seal?

2. A deeper appreciation of the role 'place' plays in terms of our realtionships towards others that may inhabit it. eg. cobra pose and male fighting pose look similar but are entirely different depending on whether they are placed in a seal colony or a yoga class.

3. Our thoughts on how events arise from the actions of chacaters who are influenced by their environments and the events that came before them. eg. a male seal reads a cobra pose a challenge to his dominance at the start of the breeding season because this is the way it has always been. A yoga class reads a male elephant's fighting stance as a yoga pose, but who knows what might happen next.