Miranda Foster, a digital media student at the Burnett Honors College, worked on a project for her Windows to the World course that focused on proper recycling methods during a lock-down. This course emphasizes creative thinking across a wide variety of disciplines to solve real world problems. Her project was also centered around using recycled materials to construct protective masks. You can learn more about Miranda's project by viewing her website here.
How did you go about researching and forming this project?
The focus of my project was originally using Artivism to educate the public on why and how clothing should be reused or recycled. Artivism is a movement that was recently introduced to me through my mixed media course at UCF and combines art with activism, allowing artists to use their platforms to address widespread issues and enact change. I wanted to create an art installation for the Downtown campus that would feature radial soft sculptures made from reused clothing. I then wanted to include a QR code that would link viewers to a website I created that would provide more information on the issue and connect them with resources. Due to the pandemic, this became impossible, so instead I chose to highlight the website and to include uses for old clothing during the lock-down and the places to donate, but to still feature a page on Artivism that detailed a piece I made for this cause. I built the site using PHP and CSS and found statistical data as well as valid clothing organizations to make the site more credible.
What guidelines did your professor provide? How did you achieve this?
The main guideline for the project was to find a problem and creatively propose a solution. All semester we have been drawing from creative texts throughout history, exploring the idea of creativity and how it has been applied to our society. The best solutions come from finding issues we are passionate about, so I chose something I advocate for in my personal life and something I have used art to speak about previously. When we think of creativity, the visual arts are probably the first to come to mind, but creativity goes so much further than the traditional sense of the word. Rolling with the punches and transforming my project as we dealt with issues of campuses closing and limited human interaction is a fair use of creativity. I believe I achieved everything the project intended and am happy to have a beautiful portfolio piece as well.
Why did you feel this topic was important?
It is not general knowledge that clothing is such a huge part of consumer waste. 95% of materials produced for clothing can be recycled, and yet 85% is thrown away. There are many organizations out there that are willing to take donations for resale or recycle and I wanted to make some of them known, as well as highlighting how this is an issue we all have an impact on. If we change our habits we can cut down a huge area of waste worldwide.
What are your long-term goals, and how does this project intersect with them?
Since I am a senior in the digital media – web design track here at UCF, a goal of mine is to end up working in the digital media field. Adding a great portfolio piece such as this raises my standard of work and hopefully brings me one step closer to that goal.
What advice would you give to other students who are interested in pursuing a similar project?
For anyone looking to do a similar project, I would make sure that you have a passion for the issue you want to speak on, as it will make the project substantially easier and more enjoyable. Definitely have a flexible plan, and use a medium that you are strong in. All in all, it will make for a better product and a fun process from start to finish.