Y3 projects
Inward Journeys Through Art
No matter how well we prepare, sometimes, unexpected and unsettling things may happen to us. Other times, we may simply be unable to prepare...
The Covid-19 pandemic surely has put a strain on all of us. The unprecedented times of social distancing, social disconnection, uncertainty, and fear have been a challenge to our individual and collective well-being. Additionally, the continuous travel bans, closing of borders and, more generally, restrictions on human mobility have limited our freedoms...
Our project comes in to provide participants with the opportunity to safely engage in a journey that configures itself as an ‘inward journey’ to get in touch with oneself in a period in which external contacts and interpersonal connection are challenging.
As a final creative product, we are planning to create an online exhibition where we will display all the material that we will have collected in our research.
The Motivation Project
Motivation is at the core of our everyday student life. It guides and shapes our behavior and drives us to accomplish our goals. Some of us seem to be motivated for everything, while others can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum. Especially during these crazy times it can be difficult to stay motivated and many students experience difficulties with procrastination and staying productive. This leads us to the question: Where does motivation come from? And how can we keep ourselves motivated when the entire world has turned upside down? To understand this, we interviewed some fellow UCG students on topics that they related to. In a series of three podcast episodes we combine academic research with open, honest conversations to get to the root of motivation, procrastination, and perfectionism.
Sustainable shopping
Sustainability should be on our minds a lot, whether it is during a shower determining if we used too much water or while deciding where to buy our new summer clothes. Sustainable shopping is often seen as a more expensive option that can rather be found in specialty stores than at your local grocery store. This project dove into the small locally owned grocery store business and looked at how sustainable small grocery stores are, what they are doing now and what they could be doing better in the future. Thereby allowing businesses to make informed decisions on their future sustainability goals and giving customers the chance to be more environmentally aware while shopping. So if you are interested in small businesses, sustainability and/or you are someone who does groceries, come in, have a seat and learn about sustainable shopping in Groningen.
Video Game Accessibility
With video games emerging as a popular entertainment medium, many discussions have been held on video games in academic contexts as well. As video games become more mainstream, the question starts to arise what kind of audiences they attract, who video game producers are catering to, and which groups spend the most time playing.
We believe that the culture around video games and ‘getting into’ video games requires a large amount of familiarity with game mechanics and conventions before individuals can properly play a game. In other words, a standalone game often does not teach the player everything they need to know in order to have a proper game experience, because the game relies heavily on conventions from the video game medium as a whole. As a complete outsider, it’s difficult to understand these conventions and apply them.
We want to research how these methods influence new or inexperienced players; how many players dislike video games or certain video game genres due to insufficient explanation of the methods that are employed? To what extent and how could this situation be improved by improving the way that mechanics are taught?
Tattoos During Lockdown:
a Psycho-Philosophical perspective
a Psycho-Philosophical perspective
I have a deep passion for philosophy, psychology, and art, and so I wanted to combine all three in a single interdisciplinary project. The art of tattooing has historically been stigmatised and viewed in a very negative light, but perceptions are starting to change.
Despite the recent increase in their popularity however, there is still little to no research available on the psychological factors associated with getting a tattoo, nor any available literature on the underlying philosophical implications. Is it a personality trait that makes some people get tattoos? Is it situational factors? Is it a form of therapy for people going through mental distress? Is it mere appreciation of art? What does a tattoo mean for a person’s self-identity? Is it to make a statement to the world? No one currently knows.
I wanted to answer these questions (among others), and so I collected qualitative data from the people I tattooed over the course of 5 months (January- May), by conducting semi-structured interviews on their tattoo using psychology and philosophy-based questions.
Perception towards post-COVID19 lifestyles
We all know and believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has been such a terrible disaster. However, people’s perception towards lifestyle changes due to COVID-19 may differ from person to person. Do you really dislike online classes? Do you really hate being with your family instead of spending time in Groningen? Do you want to know how university students on the other side of the planet feel about the COVID-19? Then here is the right place! We investigated how Chinese and Japanese university students perceive lifestyle changes due to the pandemic and we would like to tell you what we found interesting.
Surviving and Thriving at UCG
As an incoming first year UCG student, it is normal to feel overwhelmed by all the information that you receive from multiple sources, all at once. But keeping track of all this information can be a challenge. This is why we have curated a booklet that is a one-stop-shop, containing all the necessary information current students felt lacked in their incoming process. The booklet relies on a diverse range of personal experiences by current students, as well as simplifying those recurring questions about the liberal arts and science degree. We touch upon what to expect in your first year living in Frascati, how to find housing after Frascati, some of our favorite places to eat in Groningen, as well as the important academic and degree program overview. We hope that with this booklet in hand, you will not only survive your years at UCG, but thrive.
High-stress situation and social isolation
Life during the COVID-19 Pandemic has been difficult for us all, and especially for young people. Our lives have changed dramatically in many areas such as our studies, jobs, social lives and well-being. Many of us have shared similar struggles during these times, but they have also affected everyone individually in different ways. In this project, we have taken a look at how the pandemic and its lockdown have affected us, providing a space for people to explore the experiences of others and to share their own. We have also researched the best ways to successfully handle this difficult period, with the aim of providing guidance on how to survive future difficult situations such as this lockdown so we can prevent the negative consequences observed right now in the future. Additionally, we hope our project can help everyone from different backgrounds feel like they are not alone during these unsettling times and that we can help others cope with their situations.
Smart City Groningen
Cities are increasingly moving to smart city implementations. The use of real-time data in combination with new technologies are used to make cities more efficient, and in the end, smarter. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years. Our group has researched the concept of smart cities and identified several projects here in Groningen. We have conducted interviews with e.g. representatives of the municipality of Groningen to better understand these projects, and the role of citizens in the process. In addition, we drafted questionnaires and went into two districts to see what citizens themselves have to say about smart city projects in their neighborhood and their involvement. We have drafted a report for the municipality of Groningen and will provide them with the main findings and recommendations. In addition to this report, we are happy to share with you our main findings on smart cities during project presentation day.
Reflecto
A lot of people struggle with mental problems, but a big percentage of that goes unnoticed. The mental health stigma, little access to resources and poor education on the topic prevent people from getting the professional help they might need. We want to change that. With a prototype app, a chatbot, a coded bot and pseudocode, we want to give the experience of a fully working self-reflection app. This app, called ‘Reflecto’, has as its main feature a dairy, in which the user can reflect on their daily experiences. Each diary entry is examined by a natural language processing program. When a certain quantity of ‘problematic’ language is detected that signals the user experiencing a certain mental problem, they get sent online sources for information and professional help. The aim of our project is to make professional information and help on mental health issues more accessible to people, as well as giving them an insight into their own mental health.
Stop thinking start doing
We often over rationalize the things we do. Hence for this project we decided to do crazy things without having a reason for it. We chose 3 experiments, and tried them on ourselves: Fasting, Ice Bathing and Nature Experiment. These experiments required will power, discipline and pushed us outside our comfort zone both physically and mentally. We documented our experiences and compiled them into a both amusing and educational video presentation.
Eco-Anxiety
Do people who work in more eco-conscious companies have more mental health issues or future oriented stress (eco-anxiety)? We surveyed employees from businesses in the North of the Netherlands to see if they had more anxiety, stress, or other mental health issues relating to climate change awareness depending on the company they work for. Click on the link to see what we found!
Dayra Aquafeed
Our circular business plan involves organic waste, fly larvae, and sustainable fish farming in the Egyptian desert. You are the investors and we’re the entrepreneurs. Come to our live presentation to hear more about our business plan, we want you to come judge us!
Alfa College x the RUG: Unlocking Potential of Higher Education for Refugee Students
Young refugees are significantly disadvantaged in having access to university education, despite the university’s supposedly growing (online) accessibility and call for “diversity” in recent years. Within the RUG, there is no initiated project that aims to reduce this barrier faced by refugee students. As such, I set out in this project together with refugee students to map their wants and needs in relation to the university, by joining their civics and ONA classes at the Alfa College. In this presentation, I will share with you some of the insights of this research trajectory, with a special focus on its collaborative research approach, as well as an agenda for further research possibilities and the potential of doing cross-educational research.
Gender roles in Hollywood romantic comedies:
a journey through time
a journey through time
Romantic comedies are considered one of the most popular genres in film, and have a long history of entertaining audiences. We all know a good old romantic comedy: it is charming, lighthearted, funny, entertaining and centers around a love story, which usually ends on a happy note. However, it is undeniable that these classic movies have also evolved throughout the years, and have been influenced by their target audiences. Particularly in the past years, it seems that the class love story of boy-meets-girl is increasingly being refuted, as the romcoms are adapting itself to modern times. This raises questions: how have gender roles in romantic comedies changed throughout time specifically? And what has the impact of romantic comedies been on society, and vice versa? To answer those questions, this project analysed thirty romantic comedies, starting from the first romantic comedies ever made, to more recent ones. Based on criteria identified through research on media studies, gender studies, history and the societal impact of these movies, it identified some changes in romantic comedies throughout time. With this information, an interactive timeline was created, which provides a visual overview of the development of romantic comedies in the past seventy years.
Why am I doing this II
There are reasons for everything we do. Some of these reasons, we are aware of. Often though, it seems that things overcome us, more than that we actively chose for them. Additionally, every decision we make somehow influences us. Sometimes this is to a tiny extent, like how our supermarket decisions influence our dinner experience that night. On other occasions though, like choosing to quit your job, commit to a relationship or buying a house, these decisions impact more aspects of your life, and presumably for a longer time too. So, if we don’t always know why we do things, how can we expect to make the right decisions? Can we really predict how the outcomes of our actions will affect us, if we don’t know why we choose for something in the first place?
Arguably, most of us have an idea of what they want to get out of life - not specific achievements necessarily, but also feelings and qualities that we strive for. With that in mind, we might have to look more closely at how it is that we make decisions. Especially considering that they often influence whether or not we actually end up achieving what we want out of life.
The Exchange
The world is becoming increasingly international. Most students at UCG are from abroad or have discovered internationalised education through some other means. Most teachers have taught multiple courses to a diverse group of students. How did you think this went? We thought there were some improvements that could be made. For our project, we decided to dive into the world of research on intercultural competencies in order to establish an engaging education setting that focuses on what can be done right in an international education setting. We hope we can teach everyone something about what improvements and considerations can be made to make international education more accepting, mentally accessible and broadly ‘better’ for everyone involved!
Made-In
The fashion industry is in a crisis. Globally, fast fashion produces 13 million tons of textile waste and 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year. MadeIn wants to be part of a positive shift in the fashion industry. MadeIn aims to be a European marketplace for local, sustainable, affordable and transparent fashion. We believe that conscious shopping should be easy and accessible for everyone. The idea for MadeIn came to life through a personal need that we experienced first-hand:
We are a team of three international students, who appreciate clothes and fashion, but are also conscious and concerned about where our products come from.
When we decide to buy a new product, we look out for brands that sell products we like, but also use sustainable materials, transparent processes, source as local as possible, and have fair working conditions. Finding such brands can take a lot of effort, time and research; we believe there should be an easier way. This is how the idea for MadeIn emerged; a marketplace with a researched selection of European brands that align with sustainable and ethical standards.
Open Theatre in a Closed World
Did you ever walk past an argument in the streets, more or less heard the entire conversation and had to make your own judgement about who was right or wrong? What if that dialogue was scripted and was purposefully designed and performed so that you would think about that topic? In this project, we did just that. We performed three scenes related to climate change in public spaces of Groningen, whether in front of a café, in the middle of a square or next to a shopping centre. Each scene was presented with a slightly different form of theatre, some more invisible than others. Through these scripted dialogues, we hoped to provoke an emotional response on climate change in the public audience, as well as comparing which form of theatre is the most effective in doing so. Go to our website to find out more!
Changing Soundscapes
In a world that is pervaded by music, most of us have a habit out of listening to music as we travel from place to place. We all want to live as the protagonist of the movie that is our life and we like to choose our soundtrack because we know how it can influence our emotions. In this project we asked some people to take sonically enhanced walks in an attempt to learn about the link between sound, perception and emotion. We designed a 16 minutes long walk in nature (Stadspark) . Our participants were asked to follow the path while listening to the audio. Afterwards we conducted interviews about their impressions during the walk.
Potion of love; pheromones that bring people together
Love is an interesting concept that can be analyzed for decades, but the true meaning of love will still not be found. More importantly, a formula of falling in love will not be made. It is for a reason that everyone understands love differently, but what we have in common is attraction and warm, good feelings. The closest thing to love in chemistry are hormones. Our project is about the creation of a love potion using pheromones. Interested? Come to our presentation!
Naturopathy From A-Z
For our project, we have made an A-Z guide to Naturopathy. We believe society is too focused on medicalizing every physical or mental inconvenience we experience. By writing this guide, we are attempting to make people more aware of their own health and how they can influence it. This includes preventative measures. The guide mainly includes home remedies and health tips. The goal is to make people more involved in their own health, so they won’t feel the need to visit the doctor or take medication for every inconvenience.
Hues
Hues is a magazine which brings together the different personal narratives surrounding a certain topic through poems and illustrations. This year’s edition is centred around the concept of laïcité in France.
Life on Campus: How Living Together may Increase Stress
For our project, our aim was to identify the feelings of academic stress and anxiety among students from UC’s. We have personally experienced this while being around highly performant students. The complexity of this problem lies in the reason why people are feeling stressed or anxious. This varies greatly amongst students. For us personally, one of the reasons we felt that contributed to stress was living on campus. Also, we had an interview with one of the trainers from Student Service Centrum. He told us that he often sees how important it is to keep your personal life and academic life two separate things. Because students are living together on campus, one is around their peers at the university and at home. Therefore, the hypothesis of our study is that living on campus increases social cohesion, which in turn increases perceived performance pressure because one is around peers all the time, and that performance pressure increases perceived stress.
Sustainability in Agriculture: Integrated pest and disease management
Pests and diseases can significantly inhibit the yield that is produced by an agricultural area. However, the methods used to control these pests and diseases may be causing more damage to the land and surrounding ecosystems in the long-run. Therefore, this project will help to raise awareness and provide potential solutions to this complex problem that is currently being faced in the agriculture industry around the globe.
Visualizing Mental Illness
HOW DO YOU SUFFER, INSTEAD OF WHAT YOU SUFFER FROM.
In this project, we aim to see if art can aid interpersonal communication of mental illness. This is because disclosure of mental illness by the mentally ill person benefits the individual, the receiver, and society as a whole. Such communication has been found to be the most effective means of reducing stigma around mental health, and increases the chances of those with mental struggles to get help. Therefore, to see if art, which is already used in clinical practice, can help facilitate this disclosure, and create an understanding of mental illness.
We asked 4 participants to create an artwork and use it to explain their mental illness to another person. Their art and audio descriptions can be found in this digital gallery linked below.
TRIGGER WARNING: Please be aware that our project discusses sensitive topics of mental illness.
Arts in Healthcare
Have you ever been to the hospital? Do you know anyone who’s been hospitalized? It is not news that it is a stressful and intimidating experience, but art can help improve the mental and emotional well-being of patients, visitors, and healthcare workers.
In our digital gallery, you can experience how art and surroundings can impact your emotions, thoughts, and feelings. We show the contrast between a “sterile” clinical environment and an artistic environment with the use of artwork, colour, space, text and audio, to show the difference art can make within hospitals.
Join our tour to experience the role of arts in healthcare and see some of the artworks on display have been kindly provided to us by the Martini Ziekenhuis.
Together in Groningen
Through times of loneliness we have often felt the desire to be connected through someone in any way possible. In the context of the last year of corona we have taken the two groups most susceptible to loneliness and created a platform to connect them. Students and inhabitants of a local assisted living facility will be paired up based on common interests and participate in online “classes.” Here, common interests will be discussed and shared. In turn, connections between groups of people who would benefit most from forming new relationships during times of adversity will be developed. This website is a prototype for a platform to be used in a separate project currently in development. In association with a local elderly home, we will create a Dutch version of this English website where students and the elderly may connect over video chat and share common interests. When it is safe, this project will be implemented in person, as students will visit the assisted living facilities.
Mental health during the pandemic, a podcast
It is self evident but also scientifically proven, how quarantine and lockdown has a negative effect on mental health in general. We also felt the effects on us and decided to do something about it. Since we are university students, the obvious task was to do academic research about it, but we realised that not everyone has the privilege of a university library access or just the time and energy do read through tens of pages of psychological research. So we decided to help these people out at the same time and we created a podcast where we summarise existing research and mix it up with a familiar and everyday tone so it is more accessible for everyone. You can listen to it while cooking, taking the dog for a walk or just chillin in bed, enjoy!