Forgotten Emotions

Introduction：

In our daily lives, people often take photos of things they like or that touch their emotions, but at the same time, some things are not captured in photos. My Open Toolkit encourages learners to look back at previously taken photographs to remember the things that were not captured in the photographs – some of which may be on the verge of being forgotten – and to share them with others to retrieve the joy, sadness, worry, pain and other emotions these things bring to them. The listener, on the other hand, depicts what the narrator remembers through drawing and painting, empathizing with the narrator while also remembering the forgotten emotions.

How to participate？

Step 1: Find two photos taken less than or equal to 12 hours apart in your mobile phone’s photo album, and then recall things that happened during those 12 hours that were not recorded in the photos. These events must be things that triggered your mood swings (e.g., you had a great time hanging out with friends, it was hard to get wet in the rain, etc.). Pick one of these events to describe in one sentence and move on to the next stage. (thirty seconds)

Step 2: Learners are asked to select some photographs taken 3 days apart a week ago and then to recall something that happened in those 3 days that was not recorded in the photographs. Choose one of these events and describe it in one sentence and then move on to the next stage. (One minute)

Step 3: Next, go back two weeks and select a number of photographs taken over a period of 6 days and learners have to recall events that occurred during these 6 days that were not recorded in the photographs. Choose one of these events and describe it in one sentence, then move on to the next stage. (two minutes)

Step 4: Returning to 2 months ago, learners select a series of photographs that took place during a week and learners must recall events that took place during that week that were not recorded in the photographs. Choose one of these events to describe in one sentence and move on to the next stage. (three minutes)

Step 5: After completing the previous four steps, you will have four events recalled by you on your paper. And then you need to choose one of the four things that most impresses you to enrich it. For example, adding some adjectives to make the whole sentence more emotionally colorful or adding more details to depict that event. Then, starting with the first participant, the enriched sentence was shared with the rest of the group (one to two minutes), while the rest of the participants depicted the event by drawing (one minute). Then the second participant tells it, and so on after that.

* If learners have not taken a photo in the last six months or do not have a photo on their mobile phone, they can simply follow the previous steps to recall something that touched them emotionally.

Attention：If you think of something you don’t want to recall while selecting photos, skip it immediately or just stop remembering!

Sharing and communication

I want people to think of this toolkit as a little game that they can play whenever they want in their free time. In the meantime, if you would like to share your forgotten emotions or suggestions on how to improve this toolkit, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. Thank you!