Northwestern students are currently editing environmentally-focused films that were created this summer during the inaugural China-America Reel Ecology Project.
Led by Communication Prof. J.P. Sniadecki, the nine-person cohort worked remotely with Tongji University students during Spring Quarter, then met face-to-face in Shanghai in July for introductory meetings followed by small group projects around China.
The program is supported by two Buffett Undergraduate Research Fellows and the Cyrus Tang Foundation, which works with higher education institutions in China and the U.S. to support projects that target education, healthcare and community development.
When the foundation came to NU, Sniadecki, who has been involved in China’s filmmaking community, said he wanted to create a collaborative program that combined ecological research with filmmaking. This idea led to the development of the CARE project, which Sniadecki said aimed to build a collaboration between the two universities using the principles designated by the Cyrus Tang Foundation.
“The mission (of the CARE program) is to create bridges of understanding and networks of research and innovative artistic production and practice between students in both institutions,” Sniadecki said.
While most students in the program study film or journalism, there were a number of academic backgrounds represented, according to plant biology and conservation master’s student Jackson Kehoe, who said he was interested in CARE because it explores the intersection between arts and science.
He said his passion stemmed from participating in an undergraduate lab where he helped a curator identify flowers in still life paintings.
“I was really excited about the opportunity to jump into a class centered around film, which I don’t have a ton of experience in, but focusing also on how to show the effects of climate change and what’s going on right now in the environment,” Kehoe said.
After meeting in Shanghai, participants spent about three weeks in small groups with students from both universities, filming across China.
Kehoe said his group worked in the Zhoushan Archipelago on a remote island.
“It’s an interesting place,” Kehoe said. “It’s very rugged. The natural landscape is pushing through, and there are a lot of different kinds of plants.”
Kehoe said his group found it helpful to not only collect film but also plants during the program. When the students reconvened in Shanghai, Kehoe said they had a workshop where they learned how to create phytograms, a type of image created without a camera.
Sniadecki said the students placed organic materials onto a film strip with low light sensitivity and used a developing solution made of washing soda, vitamin C and water. After exposing the film to sunlight, images were made by the contact prints of the materials.
“In a world where the most touching we do is swiping our phone, to be able to literally put your hands on the images you’re creating, and the tactility and that haptic quality seems to be very exciting for folks,” Sniadecki said.
The CARE program also ran workshops for the community in China, aiming to make the project more public-facing.
Abdulsalam Ebrahim, an international graduate student from Yemen studying at Tongji University, said studying film and drama in China has allowed him to grow as a filmmaker, and the relationships he built within his group throughout the process were beneficial.
“I imagine it was like a table,” Ebrahim said. “We four standing together, every one of us holding one part.”
Ebrahim said his group traveled across the country to film, which included shoots at Lugu Lake on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and in Beijing.
Sniadecki added that when the program ended, the students’ connections with one another were so profound that many of them were in tears. They continue to work together remotely throughout the editing process this fall and will showcase their projects this winter in both Evanston and Shanghai.
During the Winter Quarter, students can apply for the spring course, but the details of what the collaboration will look like next summer are to be determined.
“It was really completely cool working together,” Ebrahim said. “Everyone had passion, respect for each other, and tried to listen and share their own ideas.”
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