Research Dossier: Development

After some talks with Shauni I realised I needed to condense my idea down more. I decided that I would make the story be about my granny. I started to watch some old recordings I had of my granny and write down some story ideas from that. I had originally made a film from a little story that my granny had told in 2017.

Its a funny little story my granny told about finding a mysterious item in the ladies toilet. we later and out it is a sanitary towel. I love this story because not only is it funny and silly. it also explores how taboo periods and menstruation was in my granny time. and it continues to be taboo today.

I started to think about my Scottishness. It's something that connects me, my granny and my friend. Growing up in a small Scottish town which a dutch dad and dutch nationality always felt strange to me. I remember being told to go back to my own country, and people talking about "foreigners" knowing that it was about me but not really understanding where the anger came from or why it was a bad thing. In a sense I never really felt Scottish because my household didn't feel Scottish. I was called posh in school because I didn't have a thick accent like everyone else.

But then when I moved to England, suddenly I was VERY Scottish. I played up to it as well. I didn't want to be like everyone else, being Scottish mad eye different, and I liked that. After that I moved to America for a year, and there I experienced an even bigger culture shock. Now being in Belgium, in the dutch side, and being so close to the Netherlands, I feel less dutch than I ever have. And I never really felt dutch to begin with. its always felt like a false identity that was given to me at birth, I don't speak the language, I don't look dutch, I don't connect with dutch culture and I'm not very close with my dutch family besides a few people.

So I guess this project might be about me claiming my identity, or just exploring it a little bit. Maybe its about me claiming Scottish as my identity, or accepting that I am Scottish, and no one can take that away from me.

My granny was very patriotic, sometimes a little too patriotic, especially in her old age.

Ive been animating and drawing some thistles to try and relate to my Scottishness and also explore my granny relationship with Scottishness.

I have also been working with some of the footage from the interview with my granny.