BOSTON — Kali Van Dusen used the early months of the coronavirus pandemic to document what she observed after leaving the Emerson College campus for her family’s home in California.
She was tasked with creating a video based on her experience.
“I have been hearing a lot of ‘let’s take the positive, let’s embrace this, find time to take up knitting,’” said Van Dusen, a junior.
“My experience has not gone that way. I’ve been feeling a little claustrophobic a little stick of my family and just losing my mind a little bit,” Van Dusen explained.
Then, she and her mother began a road trip in southern California, capturing empty beaches, parks, freeways all with her iPhone, then editing her work into a short story.
“I also wanted to be real about it,” she said. Her frustration of stay-at-home orders began to fade as she worked on her piece.
“Finding the little snippets and the tiny little silver linings are really important and do help you get through the day,” Van Dusen added.
Meanwhile, on campus, Liam Crossen had been given a different project by his instructor.
“It was initially supposed to be an exhibition project on a gallery on the Emerson campus it was supposed to be about education and Emerson students experience with education,” Crossen said.
His 15-minute documentary features several interview subjects who are asked about their take on the early stages of the pandemic and what they could be doing to help others.
“My takeaway the most valuable part to me was the positive take on this, to take an opportunity to reflect and look at our civilization as a whole and what we can learn from this,” Crossen said.
Both students who spoke with Boston 25 News are hopeful they’ll be able to return to continue their studies on campus in fall but do not yet know if that will happen because of COVID-19 concerns.
“I’m definitely worried about that because it is my last semester at Emerson, Van Dusen said.
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