What makes New York so unique is the diversity that surrounds the city. From its food to its clothing, New York is known as the home of vast ideas, peoples and cultures. Another aspect where New York is rather diverse is in its occupations. The five boroughs are home to job titles such as beekeepers, undercover restaurant testers and even artists like the naked cowboy.

By displaying new and unordinary positions, I believe the class and I will benefit from gaining a new perspective of the city we live in. We will have the opportunity to learn about interesting experiences and maybe even take a part in them some day. I would like to capture all the eccentric and unconventional professions in one collage to showcase them and reveal that there is more to New York than just corporate America.

The theme I have chosen for my collage is different headwear in New York City. Headwear speaks volumes about a person, whether it represents religious beliefs, or even a sports team they like. I feel that since NYC is such a diverse place, it is important to think about the various beliefs and preferences that exist.

Looking at headwear is an interesting way to study beliefs, as I believe that it is not paid enough attention to, and the subtle differences that exist between religious headwear is often not recognized by an average New Yorker with an extremely fast paced lifestyle. The people who we see as a blur offer us clues as to their past and background simply by what they wear on their head, and this is what I intend to explore through this collage.

It’s true. I am so fascinated by faces. It’s my favorite thing to draw and paint, but this time I’m going to explore a different facet through photography. Except I’m not going to take any pictures of human faces. Instead, I’ll take a picture of anything man-made that looks like one. Every day, we walk by still-life that is a caricature of the humans that made it. Eyes don’t have to be round. They can be square, triangular, star-shaped, etc. Mouths don’t have to be depicted with a line. I’m going to capture every “face” that has some sort of expression. The more dramatic, the better. I guess you can say it’s my spoof on “face-recognition” technology, which is not always accurate.

Oh, and if faces start appearing on the street on your way to school, don’t blame me.

For my collage, I would like to document the transportation aspect of the city. But, not in the traditional like trains, buses, taxis, or cars. I longboard to school most days, and I see many other people skating as well. Taking pictures of the different—and in my opinion more fun—means of moving from one place to another.

Taking a bus or a taxi can be mundane. Most of the time it is the same as it was last time. When skating, every experience is different. I would like to board around the city with my camera and take pictures of/with different bikers and skaters around the city. In October, there is an event called the Broadway Bomb. In this event, thousands of skaters from all over the tri-state area come down and race most of the length of Manhattan. This year, I was planning to go and I would be stoked if I could incorporate the event into a school project.

My collage theme is to look at the infrastructure of NYC. I am not talking about the bridges, highways, or parks. Instead I will look at the things many of us walk past on a daily basis (utility covers, manholes, etc.) or things we rarely use (call boxes, mail boxes, even the old parking meters) The whole point is to show how many of these underrated things lasted over the years and represent a time we didn’t before. For example, who uses a call box.

I will also want to do it digitally. One of the most important things is to have a side-by-side shot. For example, looking an older street sign compared to a new one. Looking at antique streetlights compared to the new ones. Even looking at the old subway cars compared to the new ones or the old parking meters with munimeters. This project in a sense will get the audience involved in the fact that NYC is a huge city with huge electrical, sewer, water, and transportation demands and that most these utilities that have been here for many years still function, they provide art (intricate designs on call boxes, manholes, utility covers), and even can provide a history of NYC.

The theme of my collage will be, “Body Language.” I see body gestures as a universal language where people are not separated because of language barriers. Simple gestures are able to convey emotions and ideas effectively. These gestures are also connected to the subconscious mind, whereas words are able to conceal one’s true emotions. I also see it as a form of art. The spoken language is often decorated with adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. Words are stringed together to form a complex idea. However, body language portrays only the most fundamental ideas. When two people with different cultural backgrounds meet, I believe the first form of communication will be through body language.

For this collage, I will be making a digital collage with pictures of various gestures and descriptions of what these gestures imply. I will be doing research on the connection between body language and the subconscious mind. I’ll also be taking pictures around NYC’s neighborhoods where cultures are constantly clashing. Some of the most obvious body gestures are evident when people come across a new culture for the first time. I will be capturing these emotions and natural body gestures. Together, the collage will depict a culture of unspoken words.

For my collage I want to do something dealing with the number two. I want to show how frequent the number two comes up in our lives. My collage will deal with things coming in pairs along with things that are separate, but are connected to each other. The idea came to me as I was brainstorming. I looked around my room and noticed my pair of jeans lying on the floor. I stopped and thought of the word pair for a second. The word pair brought me to the Chinese saying that “good things come in pairs”. I decided that I wanted to see if the saying rings true by choosing this theme for my collage.

I am not quite sure if I want to do it by hand or use a digital presentation for the presentation of my collage. The only downfall to the presentation is that I feel a handmade collage is stronger and more powerful when it is tangible. In order to have that same mindblowing effect in a digital representation would require flashy effects and transitions that would in itself require more work for me since I am a person who is essentially technologically challenged outside of browsing the internet and checking e-mail. However, I feel that I will most likely use the digital presentation because I have the perfect song to accompany my presentation. By having so, I will also invoke the element of sound in a presentation that would otherwise be mostly visual.

In a city as grand and bustling as New York, there is always something to do. Because people’s lives shouldn’t only revolve around school and work, they take up other activities and hobbies to do during their leisure time. There are so many things to do and see in the city, and I have decided to make a collage of the things New Yorkers or even tourists do during their free time. With so many diverse and multifaceted cultures, there are always millions of different things going on at once, whether it’s sketching something they see, going row-boating, shopping, or even simply taking a walk around Central Park.

I think I will be creating my collage by hand, with a bunch of different pictures that I will be taking around the city. These pictures will portray all the different things that people in New York seem to enjoy doing during their free time.

For my collage, I want to focus on the various street vendors across Manhattan. I want to explore what “wares” they are selling, and the different techniques they employ. There are food vendors, clothing vendors, book vendors, and thousands of other varieties of street carts. Different types of carts are concentrated in different areas in the city. I think that the products that vendors sell says something about the culture they identify with or what they enjoy. I think that Chinatown would not be Chinatown without all of the vendors selling Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Channel. The Greenwich Village has hundreds of small eclectic street vendors selling anything from tie dye t-shirts to odd antiques.

The techniques vendors use vary from very aggressive to more relaxed. I will use photographs as my primary source of media. I will create a digital collage using Prezi or some other software to create my project. I believe that the diversity among street carts mirrors the diversity of the city’s many inhabitants and cultures. Coming to the city for the first time, I was amazed at all the merchants selling food or clothing on the street. I think that the act of selling to passer-by consumers is unique to New York and big cities in general. The foot traffic supports a large customer base for such vendors creating a convenient, but real an up-close cultural encounter everyday.

For my collage about a cultural encounter, I want to do a collage on my first traditional celebration of Chinese New Year. I realize I am Chinese and that at first it seems like it is not much of an encounter, however I learned a lot from this experience. I always thought of myself as very American growing up so my first real experience learning about the New Year and its customs was an eye-opening experience. In my collage I want to use many aspects of celebrating the New Year from the food, the customs and the zodiac. The food obviously plays a significant role in Chinese New Year since each dish represents something like luck or good fortune for the next year. The customs involve the parade in Chinatown, the dragon dances, and the red envelopes. The zodiac represents which animal the following year will be whether its dog, dragon, rabbit, snake, etc.

For my collage I plan to do it by hand. Finding pictures and doing it digitally may be easier but I feel that one loses out on a lot. If done by hand, I can incorporate more texture such as the ruffles on fans or the embroidery on red envelopes. Obviously I can’t paste cooked foods onto the page but I can put dried foods on the collage such as the ones placed in the traditional candy dish around the New Year. This helps bring the culture to life by having it pop off the page towards the viewer. I also think that by hand, the viewer can vividly see the colors and brightness of the decorations and dragons that are used to celebrate the holiday. The personal effect of a handmade collage also appeals more to me than one done digitally. The disadvantages to a handmade collage are that it is harder to transport, stuff may fall off, and that it may get messy. However I think it is worth it because it will give a better story of my cultural encounter to the viewer.

Even though I have lived in New York City all my life, nothing about my strides on the same streets of New York bored me, because there is always something new and fascinating to me. My collage project will portray the urban streets of New York City through my daily encounters in my commute to school, to clubs, to hangouts, and back home; specifically what I feel makes New York the magnificent city it is.

My presentation will consist of a mostly a variety of photos: from grandeur and infamous architectural masterpieces to miniscule details on the side of a building. My photos will be edited, and may be manipulated to depict my theme and carry the message across. I suppose I will try out Prezi as well for my presentation. With its zoom-in ability, I will zoom into the details of things to show how art is everywhere: from a far-away point of view, to an up-close and clear point of view. Either perspective, this collage will represent the aspects of New York City that stand out to me.

One of the most beautiful things about New York City is its diversity of people. This city represents nearly every country and its customs. Personally, I learn to appreciate a foreign culture by trying out its foods. It’s interesting to see how different we all are, just by comparing our tastes and national dishes. Although analyzing the food that each nationally consumes may seem trivial, it is a huge indication of that people’s history and culture.

My collage project will be based on the different ethnic neighborhoods of New York City. I will include pictures of grocery stores, restaurants, and shops, with a specific focus on how different cultures sell their foods. I will primarily use a photo-editing app to crop the pictures and then Prezi to create the collage. I will use a map of the five boroughs as a template and paste pictures of neighborhoods accordingly. During the presentation, I will initially show the “map of foods”. Although it may first look like a chaos of different colors, I will then zoom in to each neighborhood to show its unique details.

For my collage, I want to use the theme “bond”. However, I want to expand this idea to not only the bonding of human, but also the bonds between cultural, to natural and the world. Therefore, I want to use different kind of symbols and pictures to express what I think “bond” is. Some people say in today’s world, it is hard to make a true connection, but in my opinion, I think it is even harder to not have connections. All human beings are born into a blood ties, and as people grow up, they make different kinds of relationships and connections. After all, human being is a social animal. I know it is a very abstract idea, but I think I can make it work.

I want to use this theme because I think it represent a part of myself. Personally, “bonds” are very important to me, and I would like to express this importance through the making of this collage. Moreover, since this class is about cultural encounter in NYC, the theme “bond” can also relate to the theme of the class in a way. I mean, while making connections, especially in NYC, many people encounter different aspects of different cultural. I want to also include this diversity in my collage.