The Art of Breathing Underwater

For as long as I can remember, there is no day where I do not have an extra-curricular activity. I have been involved in activities like swimming and ballet since I was five, with the addition of gymnastics and artistic swimming since I was 9 and 13 respectively. A decades worth of swimming taught me discipline, multitasking, and commitment. However, I realized that others only see the result at the very end and tend to underestimate the experience of being a student-athlete. Many overlook the physical, social, emotional, and mental toll it has taken on student-athletes.

Being a student-athlete comes with the constant struggle of 16 hour-long days that start and end with practice. Since there is not a lot of exposure regarding the journey of a student-athlete, their struggles are deemed invalid which creates a toxic environment where these struggles are normalized. Based on this survey I conducted online, the majority of teenagers emphasized that it’s important for a student-athlete to tell their story. This survey proved the potential impacts my product would have on others. A majority agreed that acknowledging a student athlete’s experience, would spark inspiration and motivation towards other student-athletes.

I want my product to highlight the process and emotions of a student-athlete and highlight how much more there is to athleticism than just a sport. With my experience, I wanted to tell the story of my community through an easily understood medium; something that is engaging and can properly depict our experience. Since I have been interested in miniatures and art installations, I decided it would be best to combine these concepts into one. Along with personal interviews from a range of student-athletes, research, and personal experience; I believe the visual representation provided by miniatures and the interactivity provided by art installations could work cohesively to accomplish my goal. My goal for this project was to conduct a series of interviews with teenagers regarding their experiences as a student-athlete and represent the results through an interactive miniature art installation.

With only 3 completed miniature sets, my skills with miniature-making had a lot of room for growth. Additionally, I have never attempted to fuse miniatures with art installations, which would mean that I needed to experiment a lot. Another challenging aspect of this was figuring out how to represent the experiences of student-athletes through an artistic project. Trying to encompass a collective set of answers into an art piece seemed tricky as I could not quite visualize how to do so.

Global Context

The global context my project identifies with is Identities and Relationships as it combines multiple aspects of art, mental health, communities, and personal experiences. The highlight of the project revolves around the personal experiences of student- athletes and explores the development of their physical and mental health in terms of shaping their identity. Telling their story requires a deep understanding of their community and how they function as individuals. Encompassing their experiences through an interactive medium allows the audience to get a better understanding of a student-athlete life through appreciation. This benefit applies to me as I continue to delve deep into this topic and find a way for others to share this same understanding.

Product

The Art of Breathing Underwater is a mini-art exhibition consisting of a single miniature art installation, contemporary canvas art, a gallery wall, and a compilation of writings on an acrylic. Though the main product is the miniature art installation, the complementary artworks build the framework in illustrating the life of a student-athlete, which is crucial for the audience to understand the main product to an elevated degree.

The contemporary canvas art is memorabilia of my past attires as a student-athlete from 2007 until today. This artwork is a direct response to the strand exploration of identity in my chosen global context. It explains the way being a student-athlete has become a major part of my identity.

The gallery wall consists of pieces of advice along with 10 pictures of my life as a student-athlete. The acrylic plaques are simply 3 answers from my interviewees concerning the question of “Why should a student-athletes story be heard?”. It illustrates the necessity of the exhibition and the purpose of my project. Both of these artworks are in response to the strand indicating the human relationships as it illustrates the student athlete’s relationship with themselves, their families, their friends, and other student-athletes.

Meanwhile, the miniature art installation is a diorama of a swimming pool with multiple visual metaphors explaining how others see student-athletes in contrast to the way we view ourselves. It touches topics like the hidden struggles of student- athletes, the time spiral we live in, and the need to protect our happy bubble. This installation is closely associated with the strand of the different aspects of health, which is represented through the ways being a student-athlete has affected their health. It also illustrates the sports culture these athletes are accustomed to and how these athletes feel about their relationship with the sport in relation to the strand regarding human relationships.

Reflection

I started the project thinking I had the same experiences as everyone else in the sports community. However, I was able to listen to the story of others who are far more experienced than I am, which allowed me to look at the community through a wider lens in perspective. In the beginning, I knew of the struggles student-athletes dealt with but I couldn’t quite exactly understand how these struggles contribute towards the overall beauty of being a student-athlete. However, by doing research and creating a visual representation for this thinking, I realised just how empowering these struggles shape you in the sports community. This project allowed me to thoroughly grasp the essence of the global context of identities and relationships and how it is present and crucial in my chosen community. I began to see how our different identities create the relationships we’ve grown through together.

Throughout the process, I successfully translated a topic that involved the community around me into a creative artistic concept. I have always wanted to create an interpretative artwork that allowed the audience to experience and be a part of the true message and I believe an art installation was the only way to do so. I was able to utilise a topic I was passionate about into something useful for both the sports community and to those who I believe should listen to these stories. The product sincerely encapsulates my thoughts into creative expression in which I will look at with a great sense of self-fulfilment. The past six months are truly something I will regard as a triumphant project that extends far beyond the limits of a mere academic assignment.

IB Learner Reflection

After being an IB student for four years, I realize how we subconsciously continue to apply the IB learner profiles into our daily lives. The profiles reflective, thinker, and risk- taker were the most evident through my efforts and execution in the Personal Project.

During my time in researching and formulating the interview and survey questions, I had to reflect on what I truly wanted this project to encapsulate. By choosing a concept that is very close to my heart, I was able to reflect on my past experiences as a student-athlete and question what I wish to show others. With the execution of the interviews, I was able to learn about the topic from another perspective and compare it to my own experiences. Therefore, shaping me into a reflective person, as I took into account my personal experiences along with those in my community.

In order to properly translate these ideas into a visual representation, I had to apply my skills as a thinker to brainstorm the artistic concept. Without having a clear idea of what my product was going to look like and what specific concepts it would encompass, I had to turn to other forms of inspiration sources to instigate an idea. I made many sketches on different ways I wanted the pool to look like, different elements to represent my concepts and different levels of interactivity. The calculation of the materials and how the different elements would create an aesthetic look truly tested how I could apply my thinking skills.

Since my product was never done by anyone else before, there wasn’t any artwork I could compare it to. This allowed me to become a risk-taker and test out my abilities in curating a product entirely from scratch. I was able to take the risk of not having a reference and just diving straight into the fusion of concept and artistic metaphors to create a miniature art installation that took the form of a pool. Another form of risk-taking I also took was the scheduling of my exhibition and its time constraints.