I am CĂ©line Wu, a third-year McGill undergraduate student majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Art History. I have always been passionate about art in general. Fortunately, the Participatory Cultures Lab (PCL) offered me an excellent opportunity to do an internship and explore arts-based approaches and visual tools in an academic field. I am curious about how art could be implemented in academic research and wish I could gain experience in conducting participatory research throughout this internship.
The Participatory Cultures Lab is organized around the study and use of visual and other participatory approaches to research and social action and involves the work of collaborators and research students engaged in the study of participatory research. It aims to take actions for social change via participatory methods. “Cellphilm” is a participatory method. It is a short video that carries particular messages and tackles specific issues, and it is the subject I mainly worked on this summer. I am grateful to collaborate with my fabulous co-intern, Catherine Zambrano, this summer to get things done. We focused on two main events at the beginning of June: the Re-visioning Cellphilm Methodologies Symposium and the 10th McGill International Cellphilm Festival.
Working through cellphilm-related tasks, I become a witness and a beneficiary of cellphilm as a sustainable communal practice. The first project I participated in was Nesa Bandarchian’s workshop on cellphilm. During the workshop, participants were grouped with people they did not know. For instance, I was in a group with people of different ages and professions. The process of brainstorming, storyboarding, and cellphilming brought us together. Several participants disseminated the cellphilm methodology to their own community after the workshop and submitted work to the McGill International Cellphilm Festival. Remarkedly, a participant won the first prize in the individual category at the McGill International Cellphilm Festival. I have witnessed people retaining messages from the workshop, continuing to work on them and disseminating them to their community. This journey captures the sustainable feature of cellphilm as it is not a transient thing. Apart from witnessing this, I significantly benefited from this workshop. I have learned what cellphilm is, how to make one, and why it is important. These pieces of knowledge helped me understand the value of cellphilming and reflect them in my work. In effect, they gave me a solid foundation for when I develop a communications and social media campaign to build an identity.
I enjoy designing for social media and producing other documents. Creating an inclusive environment on the internet through my poster designs could help the International Cellphilm Festival sustain a clear and positive image. In return, more people would love to share their stories and opinions via our platform and get to know the method of cellphilm. I also helped Catherine edit and adjust the infographics of a cellphilm toolkit. We have tremendously benefited from previous interns’ toolkit, which has provided guidance on how to run a cellphilm festival. Now it is our turn to pass on our experience and help others.
Some of the challenges I encountered during the internship were the language barrier and how to deal with urgent, important tasks. We conducted two cellphilm workshops at the CME Saint-Louis Daycare. It was an excellent opportunity to hear from the children. Unfortunately, most of the children are francophones, and I am not fluent in French. Although I could speak some French, it is still not enough when communicating with children and being a member to lead the conversation. I'm lucky that one of the staff at the daycare could help me out. We collaborated to guide a group in creating a cellphilm. Another challenge I faced was dealing with urgent, important tasks. I felt anxious at first and could not concentrate on the task. Fortunately, Catherine was there. We had a great talk, shared our thought, and figured out a way to divide the big task into small portions so that it is easy to start with. Cooperation and communication are the keys to success.
I'm honoured to receive the Lev Bukhman Internship Award in summer 2022 to be financially capable of interning in Montreal. I appreciate PCL and AIO for offering this great opportunity. I did not receive academic credit for the internship, but I learned much from this precious experience. Now I feel confident with my technical and interpersonal skills, believing that I can actually make some difference in social change. I appreciate the donors, Ms. Sokoloff and Mr. Bukhman, for their generous support.
