Click on each image to view the actual winning piece.
1st place: “Magpies”
Maya Corwin
Instagram: @maya_corwin BFA Directing in Film and Media Arts
Description:
“””Magpies”” is an adaptation of a poem I wrote in my freshman year. When I wrote “”Magpies,”” I was angry. Furious. Furious that my value as a woman was conditional to my appearance. To be heard and seen, I had to be palatable.
I wanted to cast away my body– the very body that gives me my voice, my strength, and my freedom. So, I began to take back my appearance. My style grew more absurd. I cut off my long hair. I treated makeup like paint. Slowly, I became my own. I may not have freed my body from the suffocating gaze of male validation, but I freed my mind from caring.
When it came time to adapt “”Magpies”” into a short film, I looked to the faces and the voices of the women around me. I reached out to my friends, their mothers, and my little sister, asking them to record themselves reading my poem. Hearing these voices come together moved me to tears. I gave them complete freedom of interpretation and inflection. And, to my shock, the poem’s meaning changed with each new voice.”
2nd place: “Making A Mockery”
Naima Pierre
@ irie2diary on Instagram and TikTok. Psychology Major / CLA
Description: In my experiences attending a predominantly white middle school, Barack Obama’s presidency wasn’t acknowledged. Unless it was to enforce the new “Let’s move” initiatives set in place which created a negative outlook for any seventh grader who despised vegetables. At the same time, the administration forced all students to stand for the pledge of allegiance, which was ultimately another form of obedience. Being one of the two black students, opened my eyes to the constant underrepresentation of Black successes, and the historical mockery of freedom for Black people.
3rd place: “Embracing the Boundless: My Journey with Freedom through Writing”
Anonymous
Legal Studies/Human Resource Management
Description: A creative writing that depicts my journey with freedom, and how in the end freedom is not about what we can do, but rather about what we choose to do with the freedom we have.
*Do not use, reproduce, alter, etc. without creator’s permission