Media and Memory

My decision to pursue this line of study is a very deliberate and personal one, and one that continues a trajectory that I have been on for some time. Some of my earliest and most vivid memories are of interactions with media. From my first trip to a movie theater, where I sat awestruck by the Star Destroyer in the opening scene of Return of the Jedi, media has been an important part of my life. For almost as long (from my third grade poems?), making media has been just as important: I have been/am a writer, musician, photographer, and multimedia documentarian.

Somewhere along the way, the relationship between my memories and my media got more complicated. The media I made started to become my memories. I started to depend on my media artifacts to represent the stories of my life. Naturally, it then becomes important to organize these pieces of media in a way that makes sense to me – so that my personal narrative makes sense. This is part of why I am drawn to UM. I want to better organize my media – my memories – and create innovative ways for others experience my stories.

During my last three years as a multimedia technician and as a continuing education student in the UNC-CH School of Social Work Nonprofit Leadership program, I have experienced firsthand what it is like to give people the tools and knowledge to tell the stories they want to tell. Stories are fundamental to the human experience; they are how we make meaning and store our most personal information. What I want to do next is provide entire communities with tools to tell their stories in creative and social ways. I want to make our stories more accessible to each other. And I want to see if those tools can make a difference in challenged communities like the ones in Jackson, Mississippi where I grew up. I am almost certain it can be done, but I have a lot of questions and a lot of problems that need consideration.