Worldbuilding
2022-2023
About
Welcome to my Humanites Core website 𑁋 I'm Brianna. The theme of this Humanites Core cycle is Worldbuilding, so throughout the year, I will engage with new texts and ideologies about the shaping of both figurative and literal worlds. This site shall be a repository of my reflections; a multimedia collection of the worlds I will interact with. In a sense, I hope to accomplish my own worldbuilding within this site, and create a space of intellectual discovery and discourse.
Reflecting on Worldbuilding
Collecting mediums that showcase worldbuilding may sound like a complex concept, but in reality it's something we do quite often. As many other social media users do, I enjoy saving content that shows a different way of seeing the world. This typically expresses itself as a paraliterary collection of posts displaying aesthetics like dark academia and cottagecore, or memes that convey a humorous way to look at the life. However, I also appreciate collecting art that reinterprets how to understand the identities given to people and places. Perhaps my favorite online artists are those who do the latter: Stasia Burrington and a SoCal illustrator by the handle of Mossed Mars. These two artists collectively create worlds that are accessible to, and indeed controlled by, women of sexual and racial diversity.
This too is also the power of worldbuilding, to imagine how we might shape the future based on what pieces we have now. No world comes from a void, meaning that shapers of worlds either real or imagined rely on the world they inhabit and their own personal interests as building blocks; Stasia Burrington's art takes inspiration from their Japanese heritage, while artist Mossed Mars explores the soft rusticism of cottagecore. In the case of these artists, and all other worldbuilders, past and current realms inspire the creation of new worlds.
Artist Stasia Burrington draws on traditional Japanese ink painting and wood printing techniques to create an world where women's bodies are seen as raw, natural, and whole. In her art, women are an untamed and even mystical force. Check out her art at stasiaburringtonart.com
Lantine illustrator Mossed Mars creates idyll scenes self-described as cottagecore primarily featuring women of color. Their art ventures to make cottagecore, an aesthetic typically portrayed by white women, a refuge for anyone. Browse their art on Instagram account @mossedmars
As for worldbuilding beyond the digital, I love reading and buying books𑁋and what greater example is there of collecting that which builds worlds than a bookcase of novels? Not only are the texts examples of individual authors creating their own spheres of existence, but the collection of texts forms a literary world full of specific themes and genres intriguing to the collector.
The texts that we explore throughout the year similarly tell a story of the kind of educational domain the professors and staff plan for us. Seeing as the course includes texts such as Homeric epics, Afrofuturist art, raunchy Italian novellas from fourteenth century, and a 1990's blockbuster film, to name a few, it is apparent that the dimension of the class is extensive and encourages much group and individual exploration. The ancient and contemporary are placed on even footing and everything is open to evaluation; indeed one's opinion, as long as explained well, is welcome. The magnitude of the texts is simply so expansive that at times it is up us the students to choose their path in the writing for this course.
So we are encouraged to probe these worlds, and their methods of construction, growing into pathfinders of our own throughout the year. Certainly, as the year progresses, I hope to find mediums of worldbuilding beyond the novels and online content I am accustomed to, and come to understand the power of persuasion in the nonexistent.