SELFIE PORTRAIT FINAL

"The Lab"

“Official Happiness” by Abidin Dino

    First off, I want to start by saying that this class has opened my eyes and showed me how important art is to the world. To be able to view art in many forms such as image, film, paintings, and sculptures and see that value that it holds is mind blowing. All the great artists I explored throughout the semester were masters at their craft and also were able to share so much history and knowledge of their work. So, for my final project, I decided to make a video as a display of art. I was going to use my project board that I developed prior to this but I thought a video would have been cool to make to end the semester off. In my video, it is me and a few of my friends. I told all of them to let's make a video and they were automatically down. This is a visual representation of joyful times and having lots of fun. I had decided to navigate and do research on more artists outside of the one that was discussed in class and the artists that I chose that mirrored my final project is Abidin Dino. 

     Turkish artist Abidin Dino (1913-1993) was a versatile artist A man of culture who lived through the great changes of the 20th century, Including two world wars, social revolutions, end of empire with text, lines, colors and form. In pursuit of a fruitful artistic life, Dino is not only a painter, Author, also illustrator, draftsman, ceramist, sculptor and filmmaker Across borders. His work covered all aspects of life but the work that really caught my eye was a piece he painted called “official happiness”. It displayed a big family piled up on the bed laying together, sleeping so peacefully, and looking so happy while there doing that. There were so many ways I could express his paintings, but I decided to go with a video. Me and my friends represent the big family that is on the bed and us dancing is us displaying joy and happiness. Now Abidin artwork covers almost every topic in life so I could take so many approaches when it comes to his work.     

    My first project was a poster board which covered my whole life. That project explained my background, my struggles, how I overcame things, and how I became the person I am today. I was going to stick with that and better it to become my final project but due to bad weather, my project got destroyed outside in the rain. It was a lot of work I put into it, so I did not even feel like doing it all over again. As I was doing research on a new artist, I stumbled across the great painter, Abidin Dino, and one of his pieces stuck out to me. I manifest a lot of great things in my life and joy and happiness is one of them. Then I started to question myself on how I can make a visual concept that displays that theme. I asked my friends if they wanted to go over to GSUB to chill and they were all down to do it. 

    As me and my friends are hanging out, we are watching trendy Tiktoks and laughing, so I then sparked another question which was “do yall want to make some dancing videos”? Of course, they said yes so, we grabbed a speaker and decided to shoot this video which turned out to be lots of fun since we were laughing and had done multiple takes. 

    With this video not being a digital project, the video is demonstrating how i felt throughout the semester. In Mirzoeff text, he quotes: “Seeing the world is not about how we see but about what we make of what we see”. Every time I link with my friends, I’m more at ease and not worried about all the negative things that has been occurring. Experiencing family issues, wanting to give up on school again, starting to feel that I was not valuable had me captured in a cage. Mirzoeff also stated in his work “trained to pay attention to distractions”. I would let all the bad and distractions stop everything good I had going on. Me taking a breather and reflecting on everything with my friends through our demonstrations put me back on course to want to go forwards with my academic career and not give up again. The video was title “The Lab”  because whenever we link to dance, we view it as us being in a laboratory, improving our dance moves, upping our creativity, and creating great visuals to be produced and wanted to be partaken in. I made the video over 2 minutes long, placed us in a big room inside of the student union building on campus, speakers were blasting, and added 2 of my closest friends that attends the university as well, to show this vibe where we zone out and enjoy the moment without any worries. As I’m dancing in the video, you can see me smiling alongside my friends, expressing that we are having a great time and joking around in the moment. Some may look at the video and say that it is just a dance video and not a real project, but when you really look at the facial expressions, body movements, listen to the 2 minute song that is looped, you could easily identify that is a joyful setting.  It was a fun experience recording this video as my final project. 

 Citation:

 'Can you paint the picture of happiness for me, Abidin? (hurriyetdailynews.com) 

 Art Now and Then: Abidin Dino (art-now-and-then.blogspot.com)