Gen Z Global Stage

Posted by Robert Goodrich,
Media Arts Specialist

Much is written about the ever-increasing saturation of technology in our everyday lives, particularly for young people, and the danger it poses to further isolate us from each other.  But one of the lessons we learned during the five months two-dozen young artists from all over the world participated in our Gen Z Global Stage project is that need not always be the case.  Technology has the capability to bring us closer.

The  participants from India, Croatia, The Philippines, Chile and The United States never met their counter-parts in the other countries.  All communication and involvement was done online, using a dedicated Google Group, YouTube and Flickr. Yet they exchanged details about their lives, shared their likes and dislikes, and worked with each other on photo projects, a collaborative dance and song, as well as an extensive story-building exercise; all culminating in a public performance on April 28th at the Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center. 

Throughout, we were reminded that even though we  were separated by many thousands of miles, the spirit of artistic collaboration had the ability to bring us together.  And for young people, fluent in the language of new te  chnology and social networking, the distance was made even shorter.  As one of the local students from G-Star School of the Arts, Miranda Hawkins, said so well during the talk-back at the end of Wednesday evening's event, "Places feel far away, but the people feel really close."
  

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