Friday 30 January 2015

UWC's UWConference

It feels like an eternity since I last posted on this blog! Indeed it's been a crazy few months since the start of 2015. So much has happened in so little time, time doesn't just fly now, it breaks the sound barrier. But all that for another day. In this post, the focus is UWC's UWC. That's right, we like our puns. It stands for United World College's United World Conference. It was the first time we held this conference which previously was known as MUN or Model United Nations. What made this conference different and justified a change in its name was that this was the first time the concept of MUN was combined with the Peace Council. 

The Peace Council does what its name suggests. It focuses on areas such as conflict resolution, discussions on integration of peace and the facilitates such discussion by utilising the diverse body of international students found on campus. Considering the premise of a model United Nations is to place oneself into the shoes of a professional politicker, I, personally, see the merit of including the Peace Council within the conference. 

My role in the conference gave me a camera lens view (literally) on the ongoings of the conference. I was part of the media team. My role specifically was to film the conference with my fellow director of film, the genius that is Andrey. With this footage, we are going to make a "mini documentary" as our service teacher, Ken, calls it. I'm just hoping our final product will warrant the title of being a 5-minute clip!

I greatly enjoyed the conference, perfectly content with my 'fly on the wall' type role. Having participated in numerous MUN conferences before this, it was a breath of fresh air seeing the conference from 'outside in'. There was something so symbolically acute in terms of how I was feeling as a participant in the conference and what I was doing with the cameras I was using. 

This feeling was perhaps most obvious to me on the morning of the first day, when at breakfast, for once, I was not sharing an intense conversation with a fellow representative but rather listening intently to the various perspectives - personal and adopted - of those who were indeed putting on their MUN faces.

I feel like there should be a part 2 to this post when the final video is completed and I will definitely be editing this to include the URL. I must admit that this experience is perhaps more experiential than reflective, perhaps the reflection will come when I am no longer in 'don't-you-dare-lose-that-shot' mode and am in the comfort of the art studio editing in the bask of an electric radiator. 

Till then, let's all follow the wise words of Bono, "we need love and peace, love and peace". Make love, not hate. Peace out <3