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By Hannah Jones ‘14
ChunLok Mah, a professor of graphic design and digital art at Winona State University, is patiently waiting. Waiting for his students to process their experience before getting together again. It is a challenge to wait… during the discovery period.
Professor Mah recently took ten of his art students on a travel study to China – much like he had done himself, not all that long ago. But there would be no homework assignments or studying, only journaling. And lots of it.
“The small details are the easiest ones to be forgotten,” Mah said. “That is why I had the students keep a detailed journal. Everything from the details of the foods they liked, and didn’t like.” In fact, according to Mah, it is these experiences that must be “digested” if this trip is going lead to what he hopes is the greatest of discoveries: themselves.
Mah prepared the students extensively for the trip. He gave them lessons in principles of Chinese art, took them to American Chinese restaurants and explained some of what they would see as they toured a few of China’s many faces: the metropolitan centers of Beijing and Shanghai, the small villages, and the bustling, industrial Dalian.
He did not, however, have them study Chinese. “In the past, I’ve had the students take a crash course in Chinese for two weeks,” Mah said. “But I don’t see two weeks of language as much of an investment.”
So how would they communicate? Mah had a plan.
When they arrived In China, Winona State students were grouped with students attending Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts (LAFA), one of China’s elite “Big 8” art schools. Together they would create art based on this year’s theme: “Round Heaven, Square Earth.”
The phrase is a Chinese study in contrasts: The “round heaven” is all that is free-flowing, abstract and intuitive. The “square earth” is the polar opposite: structured, concrete, disciplined.
Yet, paradoxically, they rest upon one another.
So the American and Chinese students were confronted with the task of communicating with one another, with limited language skills. And they had their art.
Andy Noble, 21, of Marshall, MN, worked with two students from Dalian. One of his partners had a fair grasp of English, but when language skills and Google Translate fell short, it sometimes helped to try and communicate by drawing pictures.
“Communicating some of the abstract concepts,” Noble said, “proved to be difficult, but not impossible. It challenged us in a good way. Language shouldn’t be a barrier to creativity.”
Language became much less of an issue by the end of the trip. Days working together, and an evening or two staying with their student partners’ families, lessened the frustration. Despite the language difficulties, they managed to forge strong bonds.
“When it was time to leave, half of the students were crying,” Mah said. “They go through intense bonding, and that has a long-lasting impact.”
But the students were supposed to be creating more than international friendships on this trip, and more, even, than works of art. They were supposed to be discovering their identities.
“Identity is becoming more and more crucial,” Mah said. “Identity is a designer’s most valuable asset. Identity is what companies are going to care about most when looking to hire an artist.”
“They don’t want to see a degree,” Mah said. “They want to see a portfolio.”
As the students worked on their group art creations, Noble found himself getting to know his partners and learning from them. One, a funny extrovert, the other a shy, quiet guy. Noble, a self-proclaimed introvert, began to understand how his personality affects working relationships.
“I learned a lot about myself as a designer,” he said. What they learned was expressed in their group art project. The three created a work of art based on this discovery. Using Chinese water painting, which Noble learned from his partners, the three created “Tongue and Teeth,” based on another Chinese philosophy.
“Few things could be as structurally different as a tongue and a set of teeth,” Noble commented. “Yet, they have to work together to accomplish anything.”
Beyond recognizing what is marketable about themselves, Mah wanted students to discover their own identities, simply for their own benefit.
“Without identity, we tend to feel lost,” said Mah. His own personal experience is that identity is something that is “collected” rather than something we are born with. He sees life as a garden of experiences. The ones we pick, the ones we “digest.” Those are the ones that make us who we are.
So, it is necessary to find as many new experiences as possible.
“The less you experience, the less you grow,” Mah said.
The student “digestion period” ended August 30 when Winona State students hosted five LAFA students and one professor. And now that they’ve visited Winona, it is their turn to go back home to digest all they have learned about themselves and who they are.
