One Hundred

One Hundred reclaims the imaginative potential of daily life. An enactment of generative interdependence and sustainable unknowing, One Hundred seeks the boundless creativity of youth through improvisational inquiry and selfless making. Fulfilling a list of wishes and directives of four-to-eight-year-old students from five Bellingham preschools and elementaries, the project documents one hundred consecutive days of practicing newness. Between November 20, 2024, and February 27, 2025, the author was given something new to try or make or do each day. She did not know her day's work in advance. Each morning, she opened an envelope prepared by her advisor and adapted. If given a familiar task, she made it new. If given the impossible, she made it possible. Completed amidst a hectic schedule of coursework and volunteer employment, the questions posed by One Hundred are immense. How do we maintain daily transformation? How do we redefine routine? How do we cultivate creativity in the face of deadlines and depletion? While its answers are many, what One Hundred insists upon is remembering what we've lost along the way. [A transcript to the video is included below as a supplementary file.]