Artist Statement Final Presentation

When we started our service learning projects I was very nervous as I was encountering the children, especially since there was a cultural, social and language barrier between us. With my final presentation I was unsure as to which direction I wanted to take the audience without causing any sort of controversy. This presentation was different from the original; I wanted to show the community hardship children go through on day-to-day bases and the organizations keeping them off the streets.
Again, I chose PowerPoint knowing it would enable me to speak through my presentation like the previous one. I thought of converting into an I-movie, but I wanted to use picnik.com and really tell the story behind my findings and the most reasonable conclusion was PowerPoint. My first presentation was to encompass the experience I was going through at Escuela and how I grew through the experience. However, in this presentation I wanted to go a different direction and angle. I drove around National Avenue and its surrounding blocks looking for a reoccurring theme.
I wanted to show the major amount of heritage the community has by picturing Latin/Hispanic restaurants, community centers, and the pride they take in their community and how they are trying to rebuild themselves into a better whole. I began by show an artistic mural that represented the community and went into the heritage aspect. I went about it this way to build the audience up, before showing how crime ridden the community is. The proceeding slide was to familiarize the area and showing the crime and how unsafe the community is. After bringing the audience back down to reality I wanted to build them back up by showing run-down parks and buildings, then proceeding to go into depth of the organizations trying to better the next generations. I gave three organizations that for the last thirty-plus years are striving to make a better community and save the younger youth from following the crime ridden path. I concluded with the original conclusion that was in my first presentation, I found the same concept that I used and wanted to accomplish in my experience at the school was still relevant in this presentation.
I encountered some problems along the way the main problem was trying to get my point across in the presentation and get it down on paper. I knew what I wanted to do, just didn’t really know how to go about it, thus why I decided to drive around the area and wait for it to come to me. I took numerous pictures and certain I would be able to draw my conclusion and the theme I was going for through those photos I assembled.
Overall, I learned that it make take years or decades to change a neighborhood and community, but as long as one life can change another and have a positive effect on someone you’re one step closer to helping that community. Even though I spent a small amount of time in the neighborhoods I still feel like I’ve come out a better person and in some way had some effect on someone in that same neighborhood.