MY
PERSONAL PROJECT
I created a platform that showcases, appreciates, and advocates for Pakistani culture and talent. I will make a website and video to help do this. This is a project which will showcase various upcoming Pakistani artists, as well as street art and different beautiful languages and stories present in the country.
The aim of my project can be divided into 2 main points:
1. To prove that development does not necessarily mean westernisation in Pakistan. This is because as a country we have confused the idea of growing with becoming more western, believing that our age-old practices and traditions are not as good as ones of the more developed countries, even though these parts of our culture are better adapted to our environment and people. I want to encourage people to be proud consumers of the local industries in Pakistan such as the cloth, embroidery, truck art and street art sectors that exist here instead of people who push westernisation as a form of development. This goal will mainly be achieved on my website, as I plan to advertise the art industries and artists to show how and why they are better adapted to our country and help people see the beauty of the culture.
2. To show how the stereotypes that are given to Pakistan and Pakistani people such as “terrorist” are only labels hiding the true charm of the country. My project will create a platform that will reflect my culture, the Pakistani culture through a nonwestern point of view, through the point of view of the people in Pakistan, and how they wish others to see their culture. This will help to change the perceptions which are given by the western world about Pakistan, and help see the true beauty of the community and land that exists here. This goal will mainly be achieved in my video, as I plan to provide different data about Pakistan to prove labels wrong, and aim to explore different aspects and cultures of the whole country through my video.
Impact of Project:
While completing the project my learning goal was to create a project that would help me learn more about my culture, and furthermore my identity, I was able to do this as while making my website and video, I used multiple sources, primary and secondary to develop the solution, the research helped me identify different aspects of the culture I come from, and how it is expressed. Specifically, I focused a lot on the art from Pakistani culture, from the different art forms such as truck art, street painting, and cultural patterns and designs. I was able to learn how diverse my culture really is, and how there are so many different forms people use to express themselves.
In addition one of my learning goals was also to develop my technical skills, in Digital Design I learned the basics of video editing however while building my project I expanded so much on that knowledge through trial and error, I also learned on a different video editing software, as during my DD project in Grade 8 I used Animoto, during my Personal Project I used iMovie as it helped me achieve a much more professional result. During my Personal Project project, I also improved on my skills, as I learned how to edit images and different sounds to improve their quality, something I was unaware of previously. While editing my video I faded in and out music and sound to create better flow as well. Another technical skill I was able to learn while building my project was coding, this was through research and trial & error. I mainly focused on HTML and CCS however I had expected that I would learn most through tutorials and websites however to my surprise I actually learned most through the development of my website, I learned how to use different HTML tags, and what style values would work through trial and error, this is as I had to sit for hours to figure out the right values to put in for width and height and I worked for lots of time on the front line development, where I spent lots of time designing the website and choosing the perfect color scheme and pictures.
As a student, because of all of this learning, I have not only improved my research skills as I use tutorials to learn coding and video editing, coding skills, video editing skills but now I also am more open to learning through failure, as I often say that at times I would finish coding whole web pages and then my website would not respond because of silly mistakes and end up using lots of time to figure those mistakes about.
