Annual Digital Showcase Competition for Students
On this page:
About
This page showcases the great work done by our Arts Faculty students using digital tools. Many of these productions have been created as coursework - this is common at Warwick. Some of the productions have been created by the students out of interest, or as part of campaigning. Every year we make an open call for students to enter their work into the showcase, and award prize for productions chosen by a panel of judges. This begins in the Easter vacation, with judging in week 9 of the Summer Term.
2024 Competition
The competition is now open, for all students (including PGR), individuals and team.
Enter the competition using this form.
Undergrads and postgrads may enter individually or as teams, using any relevant productions created this year for their studies, student societies, hobbies or other purposes.
You will need to upload, or provide a link to your work, plus a short reflective account.
The deadline will be midday 21 June 2024.
To discuss your ideas, and for support with creative technology, please contact Robert O'Toole r dot b dot o-toole at warwick dot ac dot uk.
2023 Winners
Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 competition, and well done to everyone who entered. The standard was very high.
Best Overall - Rebecca Capel (History), Cobwebs
An exploration of the DIY feminist media of the '80s and '90s, presented in the style of an '80s fanzine. Read it here!
Student's Reflections
"Last Summer, I created this zine, which focuses on Cobwebs, a magazine created in the late 1980s by Warwick University students. Initially, I was going to write an essay - throughout my research I realised that, as Cobwebs was deeply creative, my research translated much better to a zine. Unfortunately, Cobwebs, and the community which formed around it, have been largely forgotten - even feminist academics at Warwick were largely unaware it had existed. My zine attempts to emulate Cobwebs's spirit - its colour scheme, logos, lettering, and art. While working on this, I realised that I could incorporate other feminist media too, such as Shocking Pink, further fleshing out the creative world of feminist activism in the era. I am very proud of my zine, and feel that I succeeded in communicating my passion for feminist creativity and its history, as well as hopefully encouraging others to work on their own projects. Overall, in speaking to the Warwick alumni who worked on the magazine, I realised the depth of community Cobwebs offered. Cobwebs was not just a political venture, but one founded on friendship. Pages 10 and 11 of my zine focus on this, and these stories were incredibly rewarding to illuminate. Although I am proud of what I created, I wish I could have made my project longer, and perhaps offered more critique . Although Cobwebs was fundamental to Warwick's feminist community, it had its flaws, particularly in its Eurocentrism. Overall, however, this piece of work means a great deal to me and represents the beginning of my passion for feminist media studies. I went on to analyse teenage girls' magazines in the 1980s and 1990s for my dissertation, and delivered a talk about this zine both at ICUR and for the Warwick History department's women's history month celebrations."
Judges' Responses
"Fantastic! So refreshing to read and see. You have made a really convincing argument that this media matters, has an advantage over the digital, and is still relevant today."
"I found this an absolutely compelling read and something I was pulled into wanting to read in entirety very quickly. I loved the presentation and the way that one visually navigated the pages though the stepping stones blocks of colour overlaying the historical images and text. I did get a sense of a very distinct community from the information about Cobwebs."
"I enjoyed reading this zine as an archive of some almost forgotten history at Warwick. The content is informative and the design of zine is creative. This work could have flagged up the Cobwebs community a bit more to speak to the theme of this competition. The reflective accounts demonstrate some reflections of how you developed the passion for feminist media studies."
Best Production - Olivia Wildblood (English), "Not Really British"
A very personal podcast in which Olivia explores her mother's experiences growing up and forming her identity in Britain as a Sri Lankan migrant in the 1970s.
Download
Student's Reflections
"My podcast "Not Really British" explores my mum's experiences growing up and forming her identity in Britain as a Sri Lankan migrant in the 1970s. The podcast uses my mum’s story to tell a larger narrative of post-migration history- how host nations respond to ‘visible’ immigrants. I hope that by centring my narrative on intimate anecdotes shared first-hand by my mum, this podcast will provide listeners with fresh insights about the political and cultural moment that Commonwealth migrants found themselves in during the 1970s. In particular, listeners should gain a sense of how much political and social discourse permeates the everyday lives of migrants and that even something as personal as their sense of self is infused with ideas projected onto them by the host nation of them as ‘other’. The section of the podcast on stereotypes provides a distinctly South Asian angle of this and demonstrates how Asian migrants were very visible in one sense, due to their skin colour, but were deemed invisible in other ways, as my mum relays how the autonomy of my grandma was eclipsed by culturally charged assumptions that she was meek. The podcast ends with my mum’s reflection on how genuinely multicultural Britain is today, beyond official narratives endorsed by politicians. In doing this, she presents the nuances involved in the reconstruction of a body politic into a ‘melting pot’ society. Her final reflections demonstrate how the residue of the racist attitudes exhibited by the likes of Enoch Powell and the National Front can, arguably, still be felt today."
Judges' Responses
"This is very professional and totally compelling listening. You are really good at this! Well done. Will there be more?"
"A really well edited, thought-provoking podcast with a very authentic voice. I very much liked the usage of the inserts of political speakers. I think we have a strong sense of your mother's reflections, but I felt that the reflective piece did not give us as much of an insight into what you had learned in creating this piece. What did you learn in the process? What might you look at next and why? What went well in creating the podcast? What was more difficult?"
"I enjoyed listening to this podcast. It is very informative, clearly recorded, and the speaker sounds very professional. I like the story approach using the producer's mum's own story as a lens to show various issues such as casual racism and cultural prejudice. I would appreciate if this podcast could have adopted a more conversational approach to get through the story. This episode could benefit from a summary of reflective accounts from the producer herself at the end of the podcast."
Best Reflection - Emma Kühnelt (History), Review of the exhibition "Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust"
A review of an exhibition, asking the central question: how does the exhibition narrate history and whose voices are in- and excluded?
Student's Reflections
"In my podcast I reviewed an exhibition and my central question was: how does the exhibition narrate history and whose voices are in- and excluded? This question afflicted on my work and I tried to make my podcast as inclusive as possible. This gave me practice in critically selecting information and enabled me to approach research differently. E.g., I visited an archive and interviewed an eyewitness. For the technical side, I learned to use music to structure my content. Additionally, trying to make the content accessible for a wide audience, expressing my ideas in simple words and tone helped me writing more concisely and I also understood my own points better: when rephrasing a sentence, I sometimes self-critically realized that I myself hadn’t fully understood something yet. These insights contributed differently to the theme of community and belonging. My podcast reviews the Wiener Library’s exhibition on Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust. Focusing on individual resistance, community and belonging were central because survivors’ experiences were shaped by the violent destruction of their communities but also by the relations that formed e.g., in the camps. Belonging to and creating a community were acts of resistance during the Holocaust. Resisting Nazi plans of annihilation, belonging to a community gave Jewish victims agency and identity. Furthermore, community enabled organized resistance like armed uprisings. Lastly, the communities that formed were shaped by the circumstances of the Holocaust. This impacted the structural features of resistance e.g., the role of gender. Although I discuss these themes in my podcast, next time I would include the interview I conducted in my podcast. Unluckily, this was impossible because the interviewee did not speak English. Nevertheless, thinking about representation of a specific community for a specific community, this direct insight would add to the inclusivity regarding both content and audience."
Judges' Responses
"This was a very clear, well-presented podcast that was concisely presented in an effectively considered way. The reflection is very strong and documents well the learning process."
"This work is informative and engaging. I appreciate your reflection on your own learning through this experience as well on your positionality. I understand that topic is not a light topic itself to be addressed in a light way and I enjoyed listening to the podcast. I also think this podcast addresses the theme of community and belonging of this competition fairly-well."
"Brilliantly though-provoking."
The showcase competition will return in the Summer term of 2024.
Winners displayed here