In this project, we explored the Renaissance time period, and its lasting impact on society. Among creating our own characters, costumes, and writing pieces for them, we also made our own art pieces inspired by equal impacts on art that the Renaissance had and recreated Renaissance games with the theme of probability. During this project, I took an interest in the medical portion of the Renaissance, which gave the discovery of the plague doctor. I got to dress up as one, learning about the plague outbreaks and the outrageous treatments they used to give. It was a very creepy costume, which gave way to a slight more majestically creepy display for the exhibition. We also had to research an artist who made a huge impact on art and society and create an art piece based off them, mine being Latin American artist Salvador Dali (who I mentioned in my Dia De Los Muertos project). From him, I created a colored sketch of three of his paintings merged together. If any are interesting in playing a new--well, actually old--game, I researched a Renaissance game called Thirty-one/Thirty in one and it's the predecessor of Twenty one. All of this extra information as well as pictures will be included below.
What I enjoyed most about this project was being able to learn while doing the most extravagant presentation, it made everything so much more enjoyable during the final exhibition. In English, I liked the aspect of creating/researching about our own characters for the project, it was a creative process enhanced with the individual writing pieces for the characters. It combined a lot of independent work for the students and gave the project a more personal tone as it took everyone’s interest into it. In History, I enjoyed being able to create our own costumes/personas for the project, taking in research of the Renaissance time period. It was a little difficult to make some things by hand but the final product ended up being better than I expected. It was also fun to learn the little things of the time period, like the mannerisms, language, and even the dances. In Math, combining Renaissance games and probability was an interesting combination that I didn’t necessarily mind. I liked being able to play a game that was popular during the Renaissance, and it was a weird experience to teach other people as well as play a game during an exhibition. Also in Art, I did get to bring back an artist that I researched before, which made the work more easier to complete but the art itself was on another level. I liked being able to do a piece inspired by an artist and it was nice to try out a different subject in an art piece. Even if I didn’t challenge myself with a different medium, I liked how the final product turned out.
It would be safe to say that this project was very challenging, at least an 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. From the process to the execution, every little thing was considered, it expanded onto almost every subject and brought out a lot of work in the display, information, and individual pieces. I found the Renaissance to be pretty interesting and the project itself was very thought provoking in the research and the exhibition prep. Teaming up with other people to create a display, routine, and layout for the exhibition was a pretty intimate moment, even if intimate is a weird word to describe it, we worked together to create something that everyone was so proud of in their own way. I found the actual exhibition prep as well as the research to be the most challenging part of the project. For me, it was hard to research about specific details in certain settings because most information never mentions anything about those details. It made trying to accurately recreate my station a bit harder as well as get the overall feel of the Renaissance time into the whole room. Even though I was very happy with how it turned out, I would’ve liked to have a bit more examples or additional information about the setting my character usually resided it so my team’s display would hold a less creepier vibe during the exhibition.
Even with the costume, I had to make my own writing piece, to give more information as well as an insight into my character. I handmade a "leather notebook" with tea-stained paper, including details of the plague, a diary entry, and the various treatments used during the time.I did get feedback from a couple classmates on my writing piece and I found that it actually helped out a lot. Research has been a bit of a challenge because certain details about my specific profession, character, and the little bits of history weren't included. Though, the critique I got helped with the formatting and grammar. I really liked how it turned out and there was a lot of strange information that I managed to add into it, I just wished I could’ve had the many explanations for why people used those treatments.
Exhibition night... The sun is down and the lights are lit, our whole 10th grade wing is decorated with the presence of an adolescent Renaissance Faire. There was a theater room for the nobles and a boardwalk for the various guilds of artists, townspeople, and travelers. I loved how it turned out, both my area and everyone else’s. All of our efforts definitely showed at the final exhibition and I love how we all worked together to make our area. My area was a bit more eerie than was probably necessary but it was fun to see some people hesitant to get inside our tent-like “hospital/clinic”. We had a lot of nice props for our display, such as various vials and bottles, fake plants, halloween decorations, and fake candles, which made the exhibition feel more artistic and aesthetically pleasing. To present in all of the decoration was pretty strange. From what I heard, I was very talkative. I hope it was in a good way, I explained a lot about the plague outbreaks during the Renaissance, the various treatments, and about the purpose of the Plague Doctor costumes while giving the audience a "checkup". It was a bit hard to incorporate a sort of interactive activity with enough information, but it actually worked out when people got naturally curious about our whole presentation. Especially in our very dark and slightly creepy interpretations of plague doctor costumes, we got many different reactions and inquiries about it, and it was a good way to add extra information into the whole experience.
If I could change anything, I would like for it to go a lot longer! It was a wonderful experience to get into the Renaissance and to act as if we were a part of it, but I would’ve liked a lot more time for exhibition prep and time to research about more aspects of the Renaissance as well as get a clear idea as to what impact it has now. Though, I’m happy with how much we got to do together. We did learn a lot about that time period and how different it was to how things are now, but we spent a lot of time with the little details of our own “guilds”, displays, character information, research for our professions, and many other things. Knowing about the lasting impact the Renaissance had was a bit of a last minute addition on top of things to look into during the exhibition but with some independent research, I did get some vague answers about it.
I would strongly hope that I deserve an A. I put effort into every part of the process til exhibition, from the research to the display and the final presentation of my “guild”. I hand made my written piece, plague doctor mask, and gloves, and I participated a lot in helping with the exhibition prep as well as talking to a lot of the audience during final exhibition. In my Renaissance game and in my art piece, I’m very proud with how it looked as well as how people reacted to the game. Our work was something that stuck out to a lot of people, it gave them a wonderful experience in the Renaissance as well as loads of information to leave with. I’m just extremely proud of how I got to help in creating this memorable exhibition with everyone.