Project Descriptions
To see the Visuals of Arrowhead Union High School’s Projects, click here for their Google Slideshow.
Caroline Astle | Song
A Mother’s Perspective
I am going to write a song written from the perspective of a mother whose child is dying from AIDs in Ding Village. The background track is the instrumental of “Safe and Sound” by Taylor Swift, but the majority of the lyrics will be rewritten. I will record myself singing the song’s main melody and harmonies, and edit the song together. Additional write ups will be written to explain different lyrics of the song. My final product will be an about 4 minutes long lyric video with additional context to the song to show the grief and love of the families of AIDs victims.
Olivia Bartman | Journal/Blackout Poetry
The Consequences of Censorship
I will create a journal that portrays the consequences of censorship. The aesthetically pleasing and organized exterior of the journal will contrast the content of the pages, depicting how governments hide unpleasant truths behind an articulate facade. The journal will be a chaotic and jumbled amalgamation of found content and original works. I will weave statistics and nonfiction articles in with poetry, including my own writing. The journal will predominantly feature blackout poetry and concrete poetry, which serve as metaphors for censorship.
End Product: My final project will be a completed journal that explores the topic of censorship through multimedia sources.
Allison Beneker | Speech
Suppressed Voices
I want to talk about the Chinese government as a whole and how it suppresses people’s voices, and then go on to talk about how censorship is practiced around the world. I’m going to write a 6-8-minute dramatic speech connecting the AIDS epidemic to what I describe as the current epidemic.
Clare Bulen | Infomercial
Duped
I hope to bring attention to the forced organ harvesting process that is violating detainees and inmates within China. I am going to pretend to be a health professional, and I will offer many statistics about how necessary organs are for people in need, how much the impact would aid others, and how this process might give them a chance at freedom. Then, as they finally agreed to the terms I gave them, I would slowly show that they were actually being violated and possibly losing more vital parts of their body along with the deal that they signed. This would show how easily it is to exploit someone, and just how often it can happen, especially to those in need. They also then would be offered the opportunity to ‘get out’ of their corrupt and unjust deal by convincing someone else to take their place unknowingly. Thus, expressing how even when the exploitation is understood, it often is not stopped in its corrupt tracks, as people often seek a way out, even if it brings someone else down with them. The end product will be a video or advertisement for a jail, made to look like an infomercial. Then, in the ‘side effects’ credit scene, I will detail the extent to which the person who was viewing it had been duped. Finally, a second advertisement will play, and this time it would be advertising a way out, which in this case, would be covertly replacing yourself with someone else.
Ian Burton | Short Story
Virus Wipeout
I plan on writing a story about a virus wiping out everyone but two people. The story is basically a complete dialogue between the two with intermittent pauses to show their true intentions with each carefully crafted word. It is two men talking about the current situation they are in. Overall, the end is that they end up killing each other because they both were trying to secure their own interests, despite the evident need for them to work together. After that, a group of people come across their body and discuss what they think might have happened.
Charlie Fahey | 3D Art
The Continuation of Censorship
I will visually convey the continuation of censorship and authoritarianism displayed during the context of the story to today, highlighting the battle over Hong Kong, the instability of China’s government, and the similarity of its actions to the erosion of liberal democracy. Accompanying my art will be an explanation of the symbolism of a yellow umbrella with a wooden handle. The handle will be in pieces and connected through a piece of clear string (maybe fishing wire). The closer to the handle, the frequency of individual pieces there are. Blackened and redded-out newspaper clippings will cover the hand.
Caroline Frost | Computer Animation
Death of the Masses
In an effort to understand how Lianke characterizes death and dying through his use of comparisons to nature, I am going to create an animated video containing illustrations of the many portrayals of death and nature in the novel, using a children’s book illustration style to convey the childlike innocence of the narrator’s viewpoint. The illustrations will be overlaid with handwritings of appropriate text from the novel. This video will be accompanied by a piano arrangement that matches the rise and fall of the video’s action and contains some musical themes from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The end product will be a roughly 5-minute video visualizing the natural motifs of the novel and their relation to how the mind processes death
Noelle Herrmann | Research/3D Art
A Funeral for Capitalism
I am interested in exploring how Lianke explores the downfalls of a capitalistic system, and I will do this by first completing research on issues created or worsened by a capitalistic economy both throughout the world and as alluded to in the novel. These findings will be formatted into short paragraphs explaining the issue, and also will have a funeral couplet to compliment it, which will discuss the overarching idea and provide an artistic lens. The couplets and paragraphs will then be presented on the front of small, fake houses, as they are in the novel. The final product will be a series of funeral couplets, each paired with a more detailed explanation of the negative claims and conclusions made and they will be found on their appropriate locations.
Evelyn Himburg | 3D Art
A Family Tree
I plan to use 3D art to creatively answer the following questions: At what point do people stop caring about others and only about themselves? Do people only care about family because they are forced to? How far will people go for money?
I will use black poster board as a background and then depict a Paulownia tree, symbolizing a family tree. Each member of the Ding family will hang from the tree as a vial of blood as well as Chinese characters decorated on them. Grandpa’s vial will have more connected to it, seeing as he cares more about everyone than just himself. Father will have lots of more blood, as well as nobody surrounding him. Uncle will have Lingling, but a coffin underneath him. Red thumb prints will surround the borders, symbolizing all of the people who have died because of the Ding family and how it surrounds their life. Narrator, Lingling, and mother will have a vial. The characters on the spine of the book will be on the root of the tree, seeing as how the Ding family was rooted from the blood of others.
Charlie Hutchinson | Documentary
The Long, Dark History of AIDS
I will be creating a documentary style video detailing the long and dark history of AIDS. I hope to find at least one person to interview who has had/been affected by HIV/AIDS to add a personal connection. I will primarily focus on the United States for a more personal connection, but will also touch on the planetary spread. I plan to make the bulk of the documentary and my narration unopinionated, but I may add a preface and a prologue detailing my own feelings on the matter. Even though DODV documents how lives in a small village in China were destroyed by the AIDS epidemic, it feels as if the crisis is getting “archived” in our minds — that AIDS is history, no longer an issue, but, in reality, it is still very real and alive today. I also believe that the current pandemic has shoved it more out of the minds of people — I think it’s important to remember we still need to work to cure AIDS
Megan Janke | Research and Display
The Impact of Economic Systems
The economic system in which an individual lives can have effects reaching far beyond what most would consider, influencing the very behavior exhibited within public and private identities. Those who are unflinching and greedy are only exacerbated by a hyper-capitalistic economy, while those guided by a stronger moral compass find themselves crushed under the same system. My plan is to research the differences between communism and hyper-capitalism. I will add comparison graphs of mixed economy to show baseline functions. I also plan to profile the major characters impacting the novel (i.e. Ding Hui, Grandpa) and hypothetically inject them into the different types of economic systems so as to analyze the way in which each system enables their psychological profile to function.
Colin Kane | Song
Emotional Expression of Music
I would like to explore ways in which the AIDS epidemic and it’s emotional/communal impact on Ding Village can be reflected and explained in a relatable fashion to people outside of rural China. In order to do this, I plan on analyzing and making a compilation of music based on expressed emotion or lyrical significance, to show the change in mood and philosophy that the villagers of Ding Village from the start of the blood boom to the height of the epidemic’s effect, along with the familial relations within the Ding family, local and extended. In summary, the compilation will start with positive-oriented music then progress into more serious, solemn tones to reflect death and the movement of sick people into the school, etc. to the end of the story. The compilation will end up consisting of around 8-14 songs arranged in a specific pattern. These will be pre-existing songs that fit the mood and themes of the story as it progresses, of which I will analyze and summarize each song to notify its significance, lyrical or not
Rebecca Keating | Short Stories
History’s Repetition
History repeats itself over and over again, and no one ever learns For this reason, I want to analyze the way in which historic pandemics connect to modern ones, specifically by examining the parallels. I will do this by writing a collection of short stories where the soul of the narrator in Dream of Ding Village is reincarnated throughout time and experiences the events of historic pandemics. I will also create accompanying art pieces to illustrate important themes/scenes. I’m probably going to focus on the parallels between historical events, as well as death and the afterlife of different cultures (seeing as the different protagonists all live in different parts of the world through various times of history).
Hannah Kimmel | Research & Visual Display
Human Rights Violations
Rights are something that everyone on Earth has, but not something everyone on Earth knows about. Illegal blood selling is a violation of those human rights and people, especially citizens of China, deserve to know how not to be taken advantage of. Through my research, I would like to explore how human rights were violated by blood-sellers, along with determining who should be held responsible. The end product will be the outline of a case based on human rights violations against whoever I find at fault for not only the AIDS outbreak, but also the general abuse of the public. The end product will include an outline of questions and evidence as well as explanations for how these specific rights were violated in terms of Ding Village.
Jonah Lundberg | Research and Visual Display
Pandemics across Time
I am interested in exploring the parallels among various pandemics throughout the world’s history, specifically AIDS and COVID-19. I will compare not only statistics but will also take a closer look into how each of them was handled as well as lasting impacts they had/will have.
Colin Menz | 3D Art Installation
Flowing with Insight
I am interested in exploring the effects of censorship, and more importantly, how much it clouds reality. For this project, I will create an art installation that is similar to many around the world: the falling pieces sculpture. I will use another book to rip out pages that contain censored material, and then attach said pieces to string and have them hanging from a tall structure. The pages will be free flowing in order to create a similarity between the natural and flowing aspects throughout the novel, which serve as the motif. In this installation, people will be able to see the significance of censorship and how one fault can change the narrative of an entire situation. Information is said to be free-flowing, and this will be a visual representation of the free-flowing thought that is restricted by censorship of reality by power and government.
Julia Moore | 2D Art
Living in Fear
We all live with individual fears; we hide and show our emotions in distinct ways, and we understand issues and situations in the world around us independently. For this project, I’d like to metaphorically look inside the narrator’s mind in order to determine what he says and thinks about his family, his community, his death, and the epidemic going on around him. My project will consist of a piece of art with various images surrounding the novel and the narrator’s thoughts.
Lexi Morgan | Screenplay
Blood Will Tell
Blood will tell whether the prosperity of a community will succeed or fail based on the pureness of one’s veins, as well as their morals. With this driving idea, I will set out to determine whether a film can bring new life to the devastating story Lianke is trying to tell. For this project, I am going to write a film adaptation of the novel, hoping to bring the story to life with real people instead of the written, 2D characters.
Mckayla Murphy | Presentation
Death and Afterlife through a Culture’s Lens
The ways in which a group of people view death and what comes after it are essential to every other aspect of their culture. In order to better understand how the people of Ding Village view death and the afterlife (as well as how their beliefs/practices compare to other cultures’), I plan to use my resources to research other cultures from around the world in order to show that ultimately, views on death can boil down the major aspects of every culture. The end product will be a five-to-ten-minute presentation (oral w/ a visual supplement) exploring views on death and how it affects all aspects of the culture of Ding Village, comparisons to other cultures and their views on death and the afterlife, and an analysis of what the fact that the novel is narrated by someone who is already dead means
Riley O’Donnell | Film
Serving Justice
Attempting to reach an “evenness” in justice for horrific actions is almost always a futile exercise, as accountability is typically complicated and multifaceted. A number of factors leads to these actions – such as economic desperation, the search for profit, and individual human faults – making restorative justice a lackluster solution. My project will focus on the concept of atoning for one’s actions and asking whether or not Grandpa’s ideal of “kowtow” serving justice is sensible. I will do this by utilizing the medium of a classic noir detective serial to further explore and adapt the themes of Dream of Ding Village into an urban American setting during the Great Depression. The main detective character acts as a general allegory for the Grandpa in the novel, the mob boss acting as a Ding Hui type character, as well as the detective’s dead brother working a similar emotional weight as the diseased villagers. The themes that will be explored include the accountability of power, the shortcomings of restorative justice, and the danger of economic desperation. The final product will be a well-developed and detailed screenplay, accompanied by a fully produced TV episode in a mock series (Milwaukee Cop).
Ella Schmit | Painting
Name Symbolism
All living beings use names to distinguish themselves from others, but especially in Chinese culture the name a person is given is essential to their identity. My inspiration for this project revolves around the significance of the Chinese characters used in the names of characters in the story. I plan to research and find the Chinese characters for the names of characters, reveal their meaning and significance, and how the names connect to themes in the book. I also want to do a brief breakdown of how names are created in China. For the final result I want to have written out in detail the meanings of the names, and create a detailed painting of what each name means on a canvas. Painted over each canvas painting will be the Chinese characters for the character’s names in red, gold, or white.
Alexa Sievert | 2D Maps
Government Culpability
A government that places itself over the care and health of its people will bring about its own struggles and downfalls as it allows sickness and panic to sweep the nation. I am interested in exploring what happens when a government refuses culpability for a disease or neglects to take proper control and mitigation action. My plan is to make world maps on posters or poster boards showing the connections and consequences when a government neglects to take immediate action against new infectious diseases. Each disease will have a poster with arrows along with cards explaining the information in more detail and timelines. The idea is to showcase the similarities in patterns between different diseases, even ones that are years apart. I will also create a Chinese “graveyard” for the deaths from different diseases with the size of the tombstones being proportional to the number of deaths. The final product will have two parts. The first will be a display of various maps explaining and tracking a disease when a government chooses to reject the blame or hide their involvement. The second will be the graveyard with Chinese elements showing the consequences.
Allison Skarda | Documentary/Film
Marginalized Voices
Marginalized people, specifically historically oppressed racial and ethnic groups and impoverished people, are essentially used as lab rats to test treatments for various diseases but then forced to the back of the line for treatments that they helped create once they are proven safe and effective. In order to expose this reality, I want to make a sort of Last Week Tonight style news cast that informs the watcher of the disparity between the way marginalized people are regarded when treatments are experimental versus when they are proven safe. I will do this both by looking at the AIDs crisis- how the treatments were developed, who now has access to treatments, and where the majority of deaths now come from- as well as looking and the current COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution. The end product will be a 10-20-minute video that reveals the dark truth regarding the ways marginalized bodies are used in the treatment development phase and the ramifications this has had worldwide during the AIDS pandemic and the ramifications it will likely have during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sarah Sprinkman | Presentation
Dream Interpretations
I am interested in determining what our dreams mean to us and to the rest of society. I’d also like to explore how Lianke uses dream sequences to develop the plot and characters in Dream of Ding Village. My plan is to create a visual display that will go through dream interpretations throughout history (focusing on China), how we can interpret our dreams today, and how dream sequences move the plot forward and develop characters (especially Grandpa) in Dream of Ding Village. The final product will be a 7-10-minute presentation in which I hope to help people make more sense of their own dreams through means of information and discussion. This will include art (like dream journals, more colorful things).
Laynie Walloch | Song
Melodic Emotions
I will write a song with a full melody and lyrics that explains the story and uses abstract ways to invoke the same emotions portrayed in the novel. My final product will be 1-3-minute song with sung lyrics and a piano accompaniment which aims to mimic the feelings in the novel and provides context as to why the characters may be feeling a certain way, along with a short rationale that explains the musical techniques I used to create a piece that can accomplish my goal.
Lucy Whitt | Poster
Propaganda
I am going to create a poster convincing people to sell their blood with images similar to what Cottonwood would’ve looked like on the Ding Villagers’ visit. It will show both the propaganda used by the Chinese government, and it will teach about what the Chinese villages actually looked like during that time. I will also write-up a little description to go with it about the ways in which I believe the Chinese government wronged and exploited its people. My final product will be a flyer I painted with a model blood-selling village and a caption encouraging people to sell blood. My lovely friend Livia Huang will ask her parents to help me translate my flyer caption into Chinese characters.