Andrey Grebenetsky-Reflective Essay
“Why didn’t I think of that,” I had the urge to ask myself. It was the beginning of October 2008 and my cultural passport assignment was due. I was drawing a blank as to where I should go to complete it. My professor recommended that I take a look at the tree houses at Madison Square Park and that was that. The park was only a couple of blocks away, and I couple get a one thousand calorie Chipotle burrito along the way. I could kill two birds with one stone!
Speaking with full honesty and humility, in high school, I had rarely if ever put real thought into any school work that was assigned. They were just assignments, busy work that had to get done so I could get to what I really liked to do, train. I wasn’t a dumb jock by any means. It’s just that I coasted through high school, relatively unchallenged and unabsorbed in the work.
Revelation: When you are absorbed and enjoy your work, it’s not really work.
I showed up at Madison Square Park without any significant expectations. Art was art, which was assigned work, which was a pain. Oh, how my opinions changed. The park was smaller than a city block, so the exhibit should have been easy to find, but it wasn’t. It frustrated me at first and I eventually gave up looking around. Defeated, I sat down on a bench and closed my eyes. It was a park after all so why not relax and take a few deep breaths?
I opened my eyes again as I was looking at the sky and saw them, the tree houses that is. Even though my professor clearly called the exhibit here “The Tree Houses,” it had never crossed my mind to look up and find them. I guess I hadn’t been much of a person for scenery. It used to be all business, “Get this done.”
Pleasantly surprised, I began taking photos of the Tree Houses. Oh, how simple and unique they were. “Why didn’t I think of that?” I felt like quite the intellectual college student, standing there with illuminated eyes, taking in the details of Tadashi Kawamata’s public art. I felt giddy inside and was wondering what people were thinking of this so-called “intellectual,” photographing the trees.
The beautiful thing was that before I noticed, it didn’t look like anyone else noticed. When I began taking photos, people must have been wondering what I was doing and looked up. That was the point of Kawamata’s showcase. It is there for you to discover. It is up to the individual whether or not to go out searching. Never before was that so apparent.
That day helped change my attitudes towards art and even the way I think. It was apparent during my second cultural passport voyage.
“I wonder what he has to say,” I was asking myself before the beginning of a group conversation with David Holbrooke. It was only a few days after the Tree Houses epiphany and I was ready to listen and learn. I was not there to “just get it done,” like before.
Holbrooke was an imposing figure. Standing at over six foot four, he commanded the group’s collective attention. Not knowing much about what goes into the production of film, other than it was surely not easy, I was eager to learn about it for the sake of intellectual curiosity, even if I was never going to get into the business of film making.
Mr. Holbrooke provided commentary on several films, but the one that stood out to me was Hard As Nails. It presented a unique challenge for the director.
Holbrooke noted that Hard As Nails was the most difficult project he ever did because he did not agree with anything the person he was documenting did or believed in. He just let his subject “do his thing,” and the result was a fantastic look into extreme Christianity. In doing so, Holbrooke taught me a fundamental lesson of art. I will not like or agree with everything I see or hear, and that is okay. It does not hinder the value of that art or opinion.
I could see that not everyone in the room picked up on this insight. A lot of people were openly appalled by the documentary’s display of the extremes of Christianity. Some were angry and some were giggling, and they were missing the point. The point it that it’s okay to experience new things and disagree. Differing viewpoints are what drive intellect forward. They are another means of leaving one’s comfort zone to experience a spot of personal growth.
Revelation: The take home message of this is that to experience growth, a person needs to leave his comfort zone and see the world. The goal should be to expand one’s comfort zone as far as possible, and that is what I learned from my Cultural Passport project.
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