Education | USJ students’ works depict city’s diminishing heritage

From left:  Joana San Jose, MGTO director Helena de Senna Fernandes and Daniel Velasco

In a bid to promote the region’s traditional cultures and subcultures, Bachelor of Communication and Media (BCM) students from the University of Saint Joseph’s Faculty of Creative Industries (FCI) are showcasing their final works, which include photos and videos about the region.

The multimedia exhibition “Our Perspective” aims to show that some of the territory’s cultural aspects are slowly diminishing. The students behind the exhibition believe that it is their duty to capture and share images and videos depicting this phenomenon.

A documentary on E-series Civic Club Macau (ECCM) was one of the three documentaries showcased in this week’s opening ceremony.

The students who directed and produced the short film said they were telling the story of a group of local car enthusiasts who kept their Honda E-series engines, which were popular back in the 1970s and 1980s.

“We decided to talk more about the underground scene of modifying cars because it’s actually pretty interesting what they do and how that subculture of Macau exists without us even knowing about it,” said Daniel Velasco, a final-year BCM student.

According to him, the power of the digital age has made it easier to disseminate information.

“I think because of social media, it’s easier to share what you want to share. If there is a certain culture in Macau that people think it’s interesting, they have the power to document it or capture it,” he added.

Echoing the same sentiments, another student who worked on the documentary, Joana San Jose, noted that such documentaries would allow residents to stay informed of several subcultures in the region, particularly those which are not widely known.

“It feels good [to share this documentary] because more people will get to know that these kinds of subcultures exist,” she said.

Thirty-three photos of traditional stores in Macau are also on display at Albergue SCM.

The exhibition is a requirement for all graduating students of FCI.

Alvaro Barbosa, dean of the Faculty of Creative Industries, told the Times that they are trying to focus on projects that they find more significant and which convey the essence of the program.

Since last year, the faculty has been narrowing down the specializations for the Communication and Media course, focusing instead on skills for which the university will become well known.

“It’s important that the programs and faculties in the universities find their own niche,” said the dean.

“In the communication field, photography and journalistic documentary is one of the driving forces in the modern world, so we really want to specialize in that,” he added.

The dean remarked that there had been a significant growth in the development of these specializations, and expects that the documentaries and photographs produced this year can be submitted to international competitions.

In the coming academic year, 18 final year BCM students and 12 will specialize in photojournalism and videography, respectively.

The exhibition “Our Perspective” is on display at Albergue SCM until June 7.

Lifelong learning programs

The University of Saint Joseph (USJ) and the Rui Cunha Foundation are co-organizing a series of short lifelong learning programs related to legal studies. The first program is called “Environmental Law and Policy”, held between June 13 and July 6. This program is designed by Professor Francisco Leandro, Coordinator of the Institute of Social and Legal Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at USJ. The program is focused on topics such as environmental sustainability, international and regional policies in environmental matters, environmental law, and administrative regulations on various types of pollution in Macau.