Jethro Gillespie and Professor Joseph Ostraff, Visual Arts

I traveled to New Zealand with a group of BYU visual arts students on an International Field Studies program in the spring term of 2004. As part of this exchange, we were all engaged in an ongoing relationship with an all-Maori art university, Te Whare Wananga O Awanuiarangi in Whakatane, in the Bay of Plenty on the North Island.

I proposed to interview people from New Zealand, encouraging them to talk about what they thought about living in a land with two different and even opposed cultures. I interviewed people of Maori decent, as well as descendants of European heritage. I recorded the conversations using digital video techniques.

The footage I collected in New Zealand ran in parallel with a similar project I had begun in Roosevelt, Utah. I went with professor Ostraff to a Junior High school located on a Native American reservation on the west end of Roosevelt various times in the early spring of 2004. Similarly, I interviewed people of both Native and European decent, and encouraged them to talk about their lives in one location that had to live with two separate and distinct cultures. Again, I recorded their conversations on digital video.

The result of my findings was quite amazing. Although each nation interviewed was on opposite ends of the globe, I found that the effects of colonization were very similar with each of these people. I tried to let the people I interviewed do most of the talking. That proved to be very insightful, as some would tell me about their experiences growing up, others would tell me their philosophies on life, and others would tell me directly about the troubles associated with sharing a land with another culture.

I noticed that the Natives, from both Utah and New Zealand, seemed to approach the interviews with more of an instructional and professionally presented angle. The white people from both areas seemed to talk to me in a more laid back and casual manner. I assume that this resulted because I myself am white. The natives from both lands were, in my opinion, hesitant to indulge very personal things to me, for which I do not blame them. This makes me wonder what a native of each place would say to another member of their culture, in a casual and natural setting, without a camera in their face. Notwithstanding, I feel that everyone who participated in the project did so with a friendly understanding that my purpose was education, and not exploitation.

I wanted a very honest representation of what I found. I tried my best to use integrity in my methods. I did not want to use leading questions, and that is why I let them do most of the talking. In editing the final product, I tried to be as diplomatic and unbiased as I could. I hope that viewers of this project did not see a hidden agenda with this project, because avoiding agendas was one of my main goals in producing it.

Upon my return from New Zealand, I set up my installation in Gallery 303, in the Harris Fine Arts Center on BYU campus. I set up two video monitors facing each other, with enough physical space between them for one or two viewers to stand and observe. Each of the monitors was playing the same video (a collection of my interviews) at different intervals. The videos were looped so as to continue to play when it finished. This set up was designed so that the viewer could physically stand in the middle, listening to and watching the things that the people said.

My overall intent for this project was to help viewers see what I saw. Hopefully like me, the viewers could be touched as they became more informed, thoughtful, and more culturally sensitive to the surrounding world. I hope that this project has been able to help others like it has helped me.

Thank you so much for your financial support in this endeavor. I would be happy to send you a copy of the final DVD if you want. I am sorry that this final report took so long to get to you.

Jethro Gillespie
2185 N. 1000 W.
Provo, UT, 84604
jethrogillespie@yahoo.com
(801) 830-6574