XENA MANSFIELD

XENA MANSFIELD

“My Everyday (Truly Nothing is Mundane)”

2014

4:33

The intention of my piece is to illuminate that within the “mundane” activities and aspects of our everyday lives there is beauty and truth that can be found.  Too often the little things that make up our days are disregarded and thought of as unimportant, but how can the experiences that shape who we are as humans unimportant?  In my work I am attempting to allow the viewer into the personal experiences of my life.  I have scenes from around where my home is and the various locations I encounter on a daily basis.  Too often I too forget to stop and just take in the world around me and this piece caused me to humble myself and take a step back to truly observe.  Scenes of my friends as they naturally interact are what aspect truly caught my eye when looking back through all the footage I took.  The people we chose to surround ourselves with can tell tales of whom we are.  The sounds that are present in my piece range from rice falling into a bowl, silver necklaces tinkling together, a metal dream catcher, tapping fingers, book pages fluttering, myself breathing in and out, the sound of a vibrating wine glass and vitamins rolling around in a bottle.  I chose sounds that I encounter and create everyday taking no mind to them usually.  I concluded my piece with a clip of my family with no audio recording superimposed because family are the people we are surrounded by from birth but we did not chose their presence.  There is an internal love from family that even more so shapes us than the relationships we chose.

My piece depicts scenes of my friends, scenes of around my home, my walk down to campus, snowboarding at Keystone and also my family having dinner.  I chose scenes of my friends as they naturally are is what truly caught my eye when looking back through all the footage I took, because those are the people who help me investigate and understand my everyday experiences.  The people we chose to surround ourselves with leave a direct imprint on how we perceive the world.  The daily activities I encounter shape the way I view and think of the world so showing them in sequence tells a type of personal history.  I concluded with a scene of my family conversing in a very open environment because those personalities also shape who I am and how I conduct myself in my everyday.