Creative writing students bring new life - and past - to Navy Base
Kate Kuisel — Moultrie News
While some students are sitting at desks copying notes, Junius Wright’s creative writing class can be seen exploring the abandoned North Charleston Navy Base with journals and pencils in hand and one question in mind — Why did the base close?
Junius Wright is an English, creative writing, and cinema literacy teacher at Academic Magnet. For seven years now, he has been taking students out to the Old Navy Base in North Charleston to form their own theories for why it closed on April 6, 1996. The project is called the “3 Dimensional Story Project” or 3DSP for short. In a nutshell, it is a creative writing project that uses the suspension of disbelief to model an alternative history for why the base closed. Suspension of disbelief is the willingness to believe the unbelievable and put aside skepticism.
In reality, the base closed in the mid-1990s after the end of the Cold War and amid cuts to the national defense budget.
The 3DSP's inspiration comes from an installation at the Halsey Institute by Eames Demetrios called Kcymaerxthaere, a parallel world seen through stories and artifacts admitted worldwide.
Wright’s students take a trip out to the abandoned naval base as faux investigators to find inspiration for their own personal artifact to add to the story. The students, or their 3DSP name, Scribes, visit eight different locations in one day: The Chapel, The Annex, The Infirmary, The Mansion, The Brick Shed, The Markers, The Machine Shop, and the Trailers. While they look into the broken windows of the abandoned naval base, their own stories come to life. All their stories are based loosely on an incident called “The Event” with theories on an outbreak of a disease, and even human experiments. Their artifacts include found journals, toe tags, death certificates, and letters. Wright’s personal favorite story is about a mythical creature named Tom Long Legs who resides in the Navy Base. Tom lurks at the base waiting for abused kids to send him “totems,” often rocks with his name plastered on them, so he can rescue them.
Wright even heads out to the base to plant previous artifacts at locations to further the suspension of disbelief. The 3DSP project has gained some recognition. Eames Demetrios himself even visited Academic Magnet to discuss the project.
Wright’s favorite aspect of the project is actually visiting the Naval Base, and the students agree.
“The 3DSP project helped me grow as a writer because I was able to be influenced by my surroundings and work off of what others had previously done,” said student Rifah Tasnia.
His goal for 3DSP is for it to become an installation at the Piccolo Spoleto festival from May 26 through June 11. You can go visit the Navy Base and find QR codes at the locations for the 3DSP that link to artifacts. However, please note that it is illegal to physically enter any of the buildings. Soon, his cinematography students will be venturing back out to the base to make short films. A map, examples of student’s artifacts, the future videos, and any additional information on the 3DSP project can be found at 3dsp.wikispaces.com.
