Last Post

Hello All

This will probably be the last post I make to this blog.  I have moved on and I’m now working in University and Primary School libraries so it is not as easy to identify resources that might meet your needs.  Hope the stuff I’ve put on so far is of some help to you all.  I wish you the very best of luck with your 2011 studies.

Elizabeth

 

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
– Albert Einstein

Additional Materials – Guggenheim YouTube Selection

Browse the Guggenheim YouTube selections for additional materials.  23000 videos were submitted from 91 countries, 25 were chosen.  My pick: Bathtub IV (is it real?)

The ultimate YouTube playlist: a selection of the most unique, innovative, groundbreaking video work being created and distributed online during the past two years.

Skrzynecki Essay from the Griffith Review

I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot today with this essay from the Griffith Review written by Peter Skrzynecki.  The 6th issue of the Griffith Review also contains a brilliant introduction discussing global village and belonging.

“Of course, I am an Australian citizen and there is a piece of paper, a citizenship certificate, to prove that, as well as a passport. I feel an affinity to Australia like to no other country and would not live anywhere else. And yet, and yet, at the strangest times, a feeling stirs in the bones, in the blood, and memories of Europe emerge, memories that exist irrespective of time or where I am at the moment, and I know that I was born somewhere else and that place will always exist for me as a source of inspiration.”

Skrzynecki, P. Two wives in Krakow and a house in Treptow. GriffithREVIEW Issue 6: Our Global Place

Download a pdf of the essay here.

Belonging – An Indigenous Perspective

Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stockroute is an exhibition at the National Museum that explains the powerful notion of belonging to family and to place for the Aboriginal people of the Canning Stockroute in Western Australia.  Their art is more than just image; it is story, spirit and connection to the land.

This was where our people got together as one, along these wells. Our grandfathers too. They was all as one people, don’t matter [that they they're from] different tribes. They came here, stay for a while, and then go back home.Patrick Olodoodi (Alatuti) Tjungurrayi, Kilykily (Well 36), 2007

 

Blind Melon and Belonging

I can’t resist adding this link to Blind Melon’s “No Rain”. click here  to view the video and to see how it fits with one idea of belonging.

Digital Stories

Find Digital Stories (a combination of still images, film & audio) at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image .  Many of the stories are personal stories of family, community and migration – there could be some great stuff here for additional materials.

Tropfest – Short Film

Tropfest is a terrific source of short films for exploring the concept of belonging.  The finalist videos and trop junior films are available online at http://tropfest.ninemsn.com.au/ .  Take a look at ‘My Neighbourhood has been overrun by baboons’, ‘Nic and Shauna’ and ‘Fish Lips’.

In A Strange Land

A migrant returns to her homeland; Afghanistan.

This 4 Corners episode follows Nel Hedayat who was 6 years old when her family escaped Afghanistan and moved to Britain.  At 21, Nel returns to Afghanistan in the belief that she will find her identity in the country of her birth.  What she does  find is women living lives where simple things like going to school or not obeying a husband can have terrible consequences.

“I found myself trying to reconcile my Afghan identity and my British one and somehow synthesize something new, an indentity that was a mixture of these two contrasting worlds. Trying to do what is right, but not knowing what right was, often made me confused and angry.”

Click here to read about the episode.

Further reading on the topic of women in  Afghanistan can be found here.

Additional Materials – Comics

If you are searching for additional materials and like something a little quirky then take a look at the comics written by Nicki Greenberg on her site http://www.nickigreenberg.com/comics.shtml.  The comics are populated by strange and delightful creatures and sad little zombies yet still convey the universal notions of fitting in at school, adapting to a new family and the promise of belonging offered by “spiritual” groups.  Each tale has an unexpected and humorous twist.

Study Finds Depression Linked to Student “Belonging”

Research from the QUT links adolescent mental health with how connected a teenager feels to their school.

Professor Ian Shochet says the study found a teenager’s lack of a sense of belonging to their school had a strong link to depression.

Click here to read the full article and find further information here.