Rose's Digital Project

Inspired by Rousseau’s description of the nature of Walden, I made a video to tell the natural history of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School. In this video, I also mention the potential danger around the St.Stephen’s campus.

The first part of the video traced back to 1949, when two bishops created this school. They built several buildings around chapel. After the first few years of St. Stephen’s development, the campus was like an Eden Garden that was isolated from the crowed and boisterous of Austin city. Standing on the top of the hill, there is no building but trees and bushes. Among the natural campus lived a lot of creatures such as deer and scrawls. Some people who live near campus also would like to visit the campus to enjoy the nature.

However, due to the recent years’ financial problems, St. Stephen’s began to sell lands in order to keep the balance of its budget. The sold lands were used by their new owners to build new buildings such as apartments and stores in order to make a large amount of profit. The materialized world destroys the beautiful nature. The outside development is encroaching St. Stephen’s natural campus.

In the first part, the campus is peaceful so I choose “first rose in spring” as background music. However, in the second part of the movie which is marked by the scene of signing the contract, I set the background track as Holst’s Mars to signify the sudden change from peace to danger.

What should we do to protect the natural beauty of the St.Stehphe’s? The natural history of St. Stephen’s edifies me to protect the nature from outside materialized invasion.