This visual essay presents several students' visual texts produced in response to the minceka project (2002) based at Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa, which explores visual representations of identity. The project is part of a year-long foundation course which aims to prepare students for the transition to mainstream degree programs in music, film, fine arts, dramatic arts and a general BA. The overall aim of the course is to improve writing proficiency and critical creative production in order to help students develop discourses of visual and performing arts, in particular key concepts that are core to this discourse. This includes concepts such as representation, medium, identity, culture, history, denotation, connotation, position and metaphor.The course works with the students' existing strengths and culturally familiar ideas in order to ensure that students' experiences are given an active place within the curriculum.The students who participate in the project often come from rural and semi-rural environments, and are new to an urban (and university) environment. The students speak multiple languages and speak English as an additional language. The students are often the most educated members of their family and yet their educational experiences have been limited. In general, they come to the course with poor English writing proficiency and are limited in their discourse for visual analysis and meaning making. While the students bring a wealth of diverse knowledge and experiences, all struggle with the transition into the academic environment.
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