Homelessness has many causes. So it made sense for the graduate and undergraduate animation students in the College’s Advanced Media Lab to take on the topic as a collective class project Spring semester.
Titled “Home Is Not One Story,” the project was in collaboration with the Town of Chapel Hill’s Public Arts Office and Hidden Voices, a nonprofit organization that helps raise awareness of the problem.
The series of short student films debuted on May 14 as part of the Second Friday Art Walk on the plaza in front of the Post Office on the corner of Franklin and Henderson Streets.
The films are based on taped interviews with different homeless persons conducted over the course of several months in different shelters and social service facilities throughout Orange County by Hidden Voices staff and volunteers.
Students utilized a variety of animation methods including stop-motion, hand-drawn, laser-cut, and digital/blue screen to creatively illustrate the compelling words and stories of the people affected, such as “Anna”:
“I couldn’t work because of my back. The medical bills kept piling up and then the money ran out. I never thought a hard working girl with two college degrees would wind up in a homeless shelter, but
I did.”
The varied styles of videos explore several aspects of homelessness including homeless veterans, domestic violence, foster children aging out of support systems, immigrants and refugees, parental rejection of GLBT teens, and the working homeless.
Students worked under the guidance of the College of Design’s Art + Design Associate Professor Patrick Fitzgerald, head of the Advanced Media Lab, and Assistant Professor McArthur Freeman, to create the videos.
“I am excited about this as an art project as it helps to give visual form to an often difficult and misunderstood subject. Plus, it offered students an opportunity to tackle story-telling and communicating messages through contemporary media,” said Jeffrey York, Chapel Hill’s Public Art Administrator.
All of the short Hidden Voices videos, organized into three chapters, can be viewed on YouTube by searching for keyword: onebitpixel or visit the videos directly following the links below.
Hidden Voices Chapter One http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlbfyt_ohIU
Hidden Voices Chapter Two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALcmRpq4Y3Q
Hidden Voices Chapter Three http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlbfyt_ohIU
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