Carolyn Guan
Carolyn Guan is a 17-year old rising senior at East Chapel Hill High School who has worked with various mediums, strongly favoring painting. Inspired by various art movements, she is still working towards finding a style of art that suits her. Although unsure whether to pursue art as her career, Carolyn continues to use art as a form of expression of self and a safe space. Other hobbies she has include playing the piano, dancing (especially jazz, ballet, and hip-hop,) listening to music, and reading. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, NC, with her parents and two younger brothers.
Past Work
Residency Work
*Work in progress
The word Decretum means decision, course of action, or resolve. My piece questions the resolve we have towards environmental protection and shows the choice that must be made for our future and generations after.
Just a few days before coming to Governor’s School, a close neighbor and I talked. She had asked me, “Do you believe in the effects of global warming?” When I heard this question, I was stunned. We had been talking about future careers, and I had not expected this to correlate with my future occupation. But, as she asserted the drastic effects of climate change in the immediate future strongly, she told me about the various professions which could be intrinsically linked back to environmental protection. Climate change will quickly cause much difference to our surroundings. The most prominent one being that rising sea levels will cause major coastline cities to start submerging in water. (Miami, Seattle, Charleston, New Orleans, and our very own outer banks.) Although it was merely a fleeting thought, her question had caused me to think, do I feel obligated to help out?
I have constantly kept this question at the back of my mind knowing that I could make something out of it. Since my conversation with my neighbor, I have seen the news on the oil spill catching fire in the Mexican Gulf, an ironic solution to ocean pollution only to be increasing the number of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere once more. I have seen people leaving their plastic cups and bags on the ground, along with the large amounts of food being thrown away; try a few bites. Along with questioning moral obligations and our ethics and morals, I decided that it was necessary to get my thoughts out.
The resulting piece, Decretum, is incomplete. As a structured thinker, I prefer large amounts of planning before starting my works, sometimes spanning months. However, with the limited amount of time I had for this residency, that would not have been possible. Experimenting with time constraints allowed me to understand how well I work under short deadlines. Much creativity comes from going with the flow without a plan, which shows how fleeting thoughts can become a reality of some nature.