Bridge 4 Project Reflection
My name is Austin Cañas. I am originally from Queens, New York, and in my time at The New School, I am planning on majoring in product design. I am unsure of exactly what path I would like to take in this career field, however I do know I wanted to enter a field where I could create something tangible. Where I could create things that could have real, visible impact on society. Yet, I also wanted to work in a field not entirely dependent on computers; a major where I could still work in hands on 2D and 3D work.
Our collective project began with a certain level of indecision as to what we would make our topic. The first few days we changed our minds on what to create a collective on several times. We went from mental health awareness, to gender and racial discrimination, to the life struggles and negative stigma of pursuing careers in the arts. Then, finally, we ended up in a discussion on the prison system and it immediately clicked. Prison reform was a cause that we all supported and felt a strong connection to. We decided we would explore the corruption and dark secrets of the United States prison system for our collective.
Our research quickly led us to some interesting videos and articles about how instant ramen is utilized as currency in prisons. We decided that this would be the focal point of our project. Titling our collective “Wolf Tickets”, named after the prison slang term for “broken promises”, we designed ramen packages, replacing all the wording with statistics and information about the U.S. prison system. The next step of the project brought us to Washington Square Park, where we handed out the customized ramen packages, and engaged in discussions with various people concerning the prison system. I believe our project was very successful, as we ended up engaging in many very interesting and deep discussions with the people we handed the packages out to in the park.
This project was important to our learning, as we were able to engage in a project that sought out with the intention to seek change for the better in society. We got to learn other peoples’ perspectives on the situation, and through discussion, grew our knowledge of the situation beyond our research and prior knowledge. In integratives 2 and beyond, I hope to be able to engage in more projects that will aim to better society and actively seek change for the better in the world.
