Blogging by Breanne: You're Beautiful

For my performance art piece, I had an extremely difficult time coming up with ideas. I am not one to do anything out in public with the end goal of getting reactions from people, so I was kind of dreading this assignment as soon as I learned about it.

That being said, I had the hardest time coming up with something to do. Every time I Google or YouTube searched performance art, the examples were from professional artists, and were all so 'out there' that there was no way I could picture myself doing something like them.

Eventually, I came across a video by YouTuber Shea that she made about a year ago. She went around to her friends and classmates asking to take pictures of them, and told them she was taking pictures of things that she thought were beautiful.

Now this was something I could do.

Because this was not my original idea, I sent an email to Shea explaining what I was supposed to do for this piece, and asking permission to use her idea. A screenshot of my email is attached below. I had a backup plan in case she did not get back to me in time (I decided to do this on Sunday night...the project was due in less than 48 hours...) or decided that she did not want me to use her idea, but she replied to my email before I did my project, telling me that I could use her idea, and to simply send her the link to my video when I was done. Her response is also attached below.

After hearing back from her, I grabbed my camera and headed across the street to Curtis Hixon Park and the Tampa Riverwalk. At first I was hesitant and did not want to approach people to ask to take their picture..I mean, these were complete strangers! However, with an encouraging push from my videographer (literally) I was able to work up the nerve and ask people if I could take their pictures for a school project (and I would like to think that as I went along I became more comfortable, but lets be real, talking to strangers is not my strong suit).

Anyways, some of the reactions I got were priceless! I would hold up the camera (if they agreed) and tell them that the point of the project was to take pictures of things that I thought were beautiful. Someone cried, another laughed and smiled, some had no reaction, and one simply did not want me to take her picture.

While I wasn't really 'performing' per say, I did get a reaction from those who I approached.

Please enjoy my video! It's not my best work, but like I said, the idea came to me with less than 48 hours to actually do my performance art, upload and edit the video so that it is less than 3 minutes, and upload it here on my blog.

I hope you all enjoy!

STAY BEAUTIFUL!