IDENTITÉ: Exploring the idea of identities… CAPA London pre-departure

IDENTITÉ: Exploring the idea of identities (my own, and others’) through zine and collage

I’ve been itching to study abroad, and to do so in London at CAPA couldn’t make any more sense than it already does — I am a liberal-minded art history student and artist, as well as a music enthusiast. My identity is like this window-maker, and the window-maker only likes the color of roses (for any sort of reference, and you can look this up, I am a Venus in Pisces). I look through this window and I see that London is full of art and full of life, and I just know that this city is going to be so generous. I will leave rich with artistic and musical knowledge, a fountain pouring with even more appreciation for the areas of my life indistinguishable from the definition of my identity.

While abroad, I wanted to keep I touch with my artist side, and so I will be creating a zine over the course of 4 months. Rather than track my experiences, I want it to be a kind of like a brain-dump throughout my experiences, purging the ideas from my mind in a way that might not come across as chronological, or linear. Here is one excerpt I wrote with this prompt on my mind, the introduction:

July 5, 2018

Identity is a cliché** study abroad journal and experimental zine in which I attempt to be self-aware enough to identify may values and relate them to different but complementary pieces of myself (my identity).     ** cliché in name, to be exact

Since being in pre-departure limbo, we have been talking about our own identities, because the principle driving the conversation is that each person has an identity individual to them, comprised of different histories and sets of values. A person is their identity. Interacting with one, a person, is using contextualized knowledge (that is, by one’s experiences) to interpret another’s actions/words/etc., thus constructing the idea of their identity. And this construction may not line up to be what they think their identity to be! It’s tricky business!

A rose-tinted window is just one example of the physicality of my identity, but in any sort of metaphor the identity is an object that functions as a filter. It is going to filter out a lot of people that do not share the same interests or values. This might seem like an insensitive sentence that a young intellectual going to a liberal arts college should not say, because we should embrace different interests! Different values! I love talking to people with different perspectives from mine, as it is fascinating and a beautiful reminder that there are people unlike myself. There are so many different people with different thoughts, and this large number of them is absolutely overwhelming to think about. But realistically, my interest in art and music will have placed me in an internship position within which I will be faced with other music and art lovers. I am predisposed to meet others who might claim that artist and music enthusiast are also significant parts of their identities.

I would not say I am a transcendentalist, but transcendentalism is a huge part of art, music, and nature. While I am not in London at present, I am in England staying with my gran. Let me tell you, today I have only eaten a grapefruit and I think it might be because I have been inhaling the outdoor sights like a romantic maniac. I highly romanticize the unfamiliar outdoors (Venus in Pisces, let us not forget). It might not be clear, but this is a little tidbit about how my affinity for art and music, a large part of my identity, has influenced the way I experience the environment around me. A weak example, but that is where we are at.

Fin