WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Jake Turney, a junior at West Forsyth High School, feels he has made some new friends in South Korea. “After meeting the students from Seoul,” Jake said, “I realized how lucky I am not to have to go to school for 14 hours a day.”
Jake was a part of the recent Switch Video project sponsored by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) that linked students from West Forsyth High School’s National Art Honor Society and students from Lincoln High School in Seoul, South Korea.
Through video-conferencing technology, the students met each other and then explored and digitally documented their daily experiences that reflected their own choice of favorite places and pastimes.
Jake’s mother Mrs. Laura Turney is a media coordinator at a local magnet academy in Winston-Salem. “I was thrilled to see how Jake and the other students really used global technology through this SECCA art project to connect with each other,” she said.
“This form of communication is the method of tomorrow,” Mrs. Turney continued, “so the lessons Jake takes away from this will help him realize that the miracle of new technology makes the world much smaller and all cultures more interwoven.”
Through the project, Jake learned how to produce and edit videos and that he is more comfortable behind the camera. The students maintained an ongoing dialoge using web-based videoconferencing to consider the differences and similarities with their counterparts’ places and cultures. The students then “switched” or traded video footage and in consultation with their international partners, edited each other’s video into a short movie clip.
Ninth grader Bethany Shaw said, “This project proved to me that even though there were some differences like urban verses rural, there are more similarities in how kids think and feel around the world. For me, the fusion of differences could help make everything stronger around the world.”
Betti Longinotti, National Board Certified Teacher for art; and NAHS sponsor at West Forsyth High School, enjoyed observing her students throughout SECCA’s art project, which immersed them in a cultural experience unlike most in the classroom.
Longinotti said, “Providing them with an opportunity to converse with peers from another country, and exploring new media with video production, gave them enormous leaps within their scope and experience. The students were engaged in an educational opportunity but also had a blast through this authentic project.”
This cultural exchange program was presented in conjunction with SECCA’s Inside Out Classroom and Anna Von Gwinner’s video installation and in collaboration with West Forsyth High School’s National Art Honor Society and III Digital, a Winston-Salem multimedia design firm.
Inside Out: Artists in the Community ll is supported by a grant from The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art, and by a program grant provided by the James G. Hanes Foundation. In-kind support is provided by Sundance Plaza Hotel, Spa and Wellness Center and AdColor of Winston-Salem.
SECCA is designed to involve audiences in the art of our time. SECCA is an operating entity of the North Carolina Museum of Art, an agency of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. SECCA is also a funded partner of The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.