Kairos
Biography
Mate is an international student from Accra, Ghana. He is currently majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and is a member of the Honors College. Mate is a
Description
Kairos is a spoken word piece that radiates heartfelt inspiration for growth and recovery through the pangs of the COVID-19 pandemic. It employs a raw, gritty flavor of delivery to communicate genuine reflections on the phases of the pandemic, across all ages and hierarchies.
My hope is that this peace evokes incisive reflection on living out our unique purposes through turbulent, kairos times, when all hope seems to pale in comparison to the turmoil that sometimes plagues our lives.
Reflection
At our core, we are heavily visual beings. Not merely optically visual beings though, because it is still possible to see with closed eyes. How though? The perception that I hint at is the power to imagine, to formulate an image in your mind’s eye. And creation is the capacity to breathe life into the nostrils of that idea and spark in it, a heartbeat.
The CREATE! Microgrant has immensely augmented my power as a creator. During the summer, just before receiving a camera phone through the grant, my original device died unexpectedly—I did some tinkering to resurrect it, but it still gave up its ghost in the end. So, the resource I received through the Microgrant was more than timely, and it empowered me to proceed with fleshing out my videography and spoken word ideas.
Through the funding from the grant and the camera phone I received, I have been able to record crisp voiceover slices to be layered with video footage, and I was able to fully utilize the capabilities of some very good editing software, which I would have otherwise had great difficulty accessing.
The greatest thing I learnt though, creating through the pandemic was the quality of patience. On introspection, I have come to realize that I really love seeing things come alive “NOW.” “Write a 1-minute voiceover script,” “Sprinkle in some sound effects,” “Record a guitar background melody,” “Have some Cheetos!” “Record some background tracking shots and inject them into the already simmering multimedia stew.” I seemingly conjure all these ideas in an instant, and I wish to see their outcome … also in an instant! Impossible right? But I had to learn that the hard way. To overcome the superficial thrill of instantaneous results and learn to bask in the minor gains that compound into a beautiful end.
This has taught me immensely about what stepwise growth looks like for an artist, and I feel that it is definitely one way that other creatives stand to benefit if also granted the financial assistance the CREATE! Microgrant offers. It’s not a generic funding package. It is the bridge—or at least one of the trusses on the bridge—between the gap splitting ideation and creation, and I know it would be more than helpful to other artists as well.