What is the combination of global pandemic, quarantine, euphoria, and…FASHION.
On the January 18th, the first Fashion Show of the new campus came to a successful conclusion in the New Year of 2021.
As the Sun went down, the outdoor basketball court became more and more crowded, a visual feast is about to begin.
At 7 p.m, with the appearance of the host, the 2021 fashion show finally began. Four talented dancers from Sparkling warmed up the stage, along with the song <Intermission> performed by Miriam. Every audience was excited and couldn’t wait to see the show.
As the music began, The models of the first theme—“Euphoria” appeared in turn. At the backstage, groups of models and designers prepared, with the help of staff. Models dressed in fancy outfits and high heels, waiting for their own moments.
After the first appearance, designers walked towards the front of the runway together with their models to introduce their inspiration and design concept to the judges (Clara, Tracy, Jie) and the audience, and designers also received comments from judges.
After the show of three groups of models and designers, the theme of “Euphoria” ended up. During the lottery drawing, winners went up to the stage to receive their prizes in turn.
Then, with the second group of hosts Sabrina and Jason, the second part of the show on the theme “Mask Blue” began. Esther brought a song called <Blue> to the audience, and then models appeared respectively. Different from the style of the previous theme “Euphoria”, most of the design work of “Mask Blue” adopted blue and white as the main colors。
After five groups of models finished their show, the stage was handed over to the Sophia. The amazing song ended up this year’s fashion show.
Finally, it came to the awarding ceremony. The judges presented the trophies to the all winners.
At 9 p.m, the 2021 fashion show officially ended in gorgeous lights. Here, we would like to thank Elaine, the president of Fashion Show, and her SCIE Fashion Show team. We also would like to thank all the teachers for their support, all the models and designers for their work, and all the audience for coming to watch the Show.
In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 seriously affected people’s live, so SCIE Fashion Show has decided to integrate Fashion with the theme of the current era. We firmly believe that although we live under the epidemic, the seeds of art and inspiration will germinate, and bloom more brilliantly in the bright future…
My essay is on the recent development of China’s mental health care system and how it can help address this question. Though, I actually parried the question raised by the prompt, and I did not in the end emphasise too much that more care should be devoted to the socially vulnerable. Rather, I intended to underscore the complexity and ambiguity in any employment of these two notions — “socially vulnerable” and “responsibility” — in the concrete working of society. Through my study I discovered that the train of legislative efforts made in the 1980s to 2000s to legally recognise, to enhance public knowledge of, and to erect new asylums for, “the mentally ill,” in fact coincided spatiotemporally with government efforts in putting new agendas of foreign policies and city development to work. Thus, the recent development of China’s mental health care, from scratch to full maturity, is not solely the consequence of “humanitarian effort,” but also of some other ulterior motives. In my conclusion, I hinted that any answer to this question would entail empirical investigation into the concrete working of social institutions, and depending on the nature of this “socially vulnerable” group, claims of “responsibility” may be leveraged as veils for other purposes.
Before starting my research I did not by then have a well-formed hypothesis, but I did have Michel Foucault’s intriguing study on madness in mind. Due to the rather peculiar nature of the object of my study, I was not able to apply the sociological theories (Marxism, Functionalism, e.g.) I learnt in class to my own research. I must thank my sociology teacher for his encouragement and provision of many textbook resources and classical studies done in the field of mental health care. In addition to that, he prepared a statement of the school for my application to conduct short interviews at a local mental health hospital — this application, however, though quite expectedly, sank into oblivion — without his help this project would be very difficult.
I made a documentary “The Definition” about the situation of elderly in Shenzhen to enter this competition. As I have some previous knowledge in filmmaking, learning from TBU studio, I though it would be meaningful if I combined my filmmaking skills with sociology knowledge. In the meanwhile, after learning the very first chapter of sociology, The Family, I found out that the situation of elderly in the UK is different from that of elderly in Shenzhen. For instance, elderly have the responsibility taking care of their grandchildren and dance in the park for entertainment is distinctive in China. Therefore, I decided to make a documentary to record the interesting culture.
I learnt a lot during the preparation for the competition. I learned a lot about how to carry out an individual primary research when I was filming “The Definition”, which helps a lot in my current sociology study. Also, I understood sociology theories better. For instance, postmodernism used to be only a vague theoretical perspective for me, yet it amazed me knowing that elderly people participate actively in public activities can be considered as view of postmodernism.
Most importantly, I realized filmmaking can make some impacts on people, portraying problems of society. Experience of BSA opened my eyes and led me rethink about my future major in college. I want use my skills and knowledge to help more people, so I will probably try a major with humanity and filmmaking combined instead of pursuing the dream of being an artist alone.
Learning sociology gives me a new perspective in seeing how the world works, and it also lets me care more about the vulnerability in the society. Thank you to my sociology teacher, Richard Driscoll, who gave me lots of inspiration such as filming the dancing in the park, which is interesting to British people, and recommenced lots of sociological books about the elderly.
By listening to his advice, “The Definition” eventually divides into two parts: one is about the elderly in nursing home and the other is about people dancing in the park. Also, there is many interviews in the documentary to give a more well-rounded perspective.
I would like to thank my Math teacher Michael Jin and my friend Franchaska, who helped me with the voice over. Also, thanks to my family members, especially my dear grandmother, who gave me lots of insights related to the issue of elderly.
I made this documentary just before the deadline, thus it’s not so perfect. I’ll probably elaborate some shots and reedit it in the future.
If you are interested, you can click the link below and watch it.
Teng Xun Video:https://v.qq.com/x/page/u0862usad2v.html
Bilibili:https://www.bilibili.com/video/av38188271?from=search&seid=10452775157822232568