Museums and the Art Classroom

For my museum visits I first went to the Before the Americas Exhibit in the Mason Art and Design building gallery space (originally intended to be in the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC but shut down for "being part of DEI" by the Trump administration). Then I visited the National Museum for Women in the Arts.

The Before the Americas Exhibit is about 4 themes or big ideas: ancestral memories, migration, invisibility and inter connectivity. The work is by major artists from Africa, North and South America and the Caribbean. The gallery is organized so the viewer can explore each idea in more and more depth with each of the artists base knowledge on the subject and expression adding more and more perspective to the shared big idea. A flow is created as you walk between the artworks and can see how the sub grouping of ideas connect under the umbrella of the main big idea, allowing for a wide range of materials and storytelling methods to be used and complete the goal of connecting to the big idea. These range from film, a book, weaving, LED neon sign making, painting, the assemblage of found objects, sculpture, etc.

This relates to our reading Teaching Meaning in Artmaking by Sydney R. Walker, as we learn how to teach students how to be the best artists they can be and model how real professional artists work in the field. The reading states that the strongest lesson plans relate to a big idea where students can reach the goal of expressing the big idea and base knowledge they have to have or acquire in order to inform their decision making in how they exercise connecting ideas and expressing it, especially in relation to their own personal lives. This allows for there to be many right answers and approaches to solving the problem of the assignment prompt. Allowing a range of materials and problem solving approaches to be used rewards diversity of thought in a classroom.

The artworks explore the history of many people in America and how the past affects people in our present. These artworks are created by POC and immigrant artists, allowing people to tell their story themselves instead of having those in power tell the story for them. It is incredibly emotionally powerful to witness someone tell their own story and share their truth through any medium. Even to a viewer who may not be able to relate to someone else's experience, art has the power to translate someone else's point of view so another person can see a snippet of the world through their eyes.

Each artist tackles one of these 4 big ideas, expresses their knowledge base in an area the viewer may not be as familiar with, and the artist demonstrates their further exploration of the big idea and expresses their own personal reactions and emotions through an art medium. While the viewer may have a different knowledge base and not share the same experience, to make sense of what they are looking at, the viewer has to try to process the specific, strategic choices made with both the content within the imagery. With the choices in how parts of the image are meant to combine and relate superimposed ideas as well as choices in how emotion and meaning is conveyed through how it is expressed.

As human beings curiously seeking understanding within the unknowns in our lives and the world we've been born into: adding new perspectives to our worldview can be deeply emotional and impactful. The truth of history may include grim realities that are inconvenient truths for those in powerful positions, and exploring topics such as race, identity, and the history of slavery, genocide and racism in may make the public question leaders who want to blame marginalized communities for the problems these leaders aren't creative enough or willing to solve.

In the end robbing people of telling their story robs all of us and protecting hate protects no one. Not even the hateful because it requires protecting ignorance and fear in order for the hate to survive, which automatically limits someones ability to navigate and understand the world and limits the possibilities of what they are capable of. While a viewer of an artwork may not be able to relate to another persons experience exactly, they can still connect to shared emotions, the hopes and dreams, wants and needs and stories of others. Not only does this beautifully reveal more of the world, which can seem so vast and scary and full of unknown and uncertainty at times but it can put a persons their own experience in context so they can better understand themself.

From this I've come to the conclusion that anyone who is afraid to face these artworks that could lead to them learning about other peoples stories is afraid to put parts of their own identity in context to learn about themself, and is afraid to face themself probably due to a hatred of themself. Some people are not strong enough to face themselves or sit within discomfort and critically think about new information enough to learn and grow as a person. To learn more about others and oneself gives a beautiful gift, an opportunity to grow, and an opportunity to get to know more of the beautiful wonders of the world. This does include having to learn to process hard truths about history, which is an essential skill to learn.

Some in power have historically made a profit from targeting marginalized communities and have sought to structure commerce and structure the access to certain resources to limit these communities from having the power to fight back. What protects these people in power and their profits is selling a narrative that these marginalized groups don't deserve the same rights as the privileged they deem worthy of those rights, and excusing this behavior by arguing against the humanity of the targeted group.

This makes art galleries such as Before the Americas a threat, not a threat to those who listen and learn from stories, but a threat to those who profit off selling a narrative that doesn't hold up when other stories are told. For the public to have access to the Before the Americas exhibit means the public would have access to facing these works of art -and to make sense of them would require having to process the artists storytelling choices with the use of each medium, revealing the experiences and knowledge that informs such expression. For the public to share a space with that, both figuratively and in literally sharing a gallery space with that, means viewing the artists as real people we can connect to, proving that connection is possible no matter our differences, unveiling that our shared humanity is undeniable.

One of the works that stood out to me was Black Cage by Fabiola Alvarez Yurcisin. Yurcisin takes old discarded materials like typewriter ribbon and tapes from old audio and video technologies and repurposes them through what she weaves, which she said is an act of questioning "the speed in which we produce, consume, and discard our technologies." She says she creates "objects that respond to systems that want to keep us under control or within certain limits. By building metaphors that explore the caging relationship we have with the natural world, I explore the impossibility of our superiority to nature." When peeking into this black woven basket the viewer becomes surprised by seeing themself reflected in a mirror at the bottom of the woven cage. The material itself brings in the theme of our relationship with consumerism and planned obsolescence with technology and using it to create a cage the viewer can literally see themselves trapped inside makes the viewer question how sustainable this use of resources is and ask if this consumption is trapping us in creating environmental and social issues.

This relates to the big idea of migration through the migration of resources, money, and questions how quickly we consume and discard the technology and materials we produce. Paired next to this art piece is another, Neon Like LED Sign by Irene Clouthier, saying "No Human Is Illegal" relating to the idea of migration with how immigrants are forced to move from one place to another. This choice prompts the viewer to relate these concepts, making one think of how American was built by immigrants and whose big companies depend on the labor of immigrants to cheaply produce the products and technology we consume to enable the rate at which we consume it. Connecting that to the imagery of the cage relates that idea to the colonization, genocide and enslavement of people in the Americas, done for the purpose of rapidly selling resources for the consumption of colonial powers and to boost the economy of these countries who relied on the success of the first international companies. Even today we have American corporations deemed "too big to fail" because if they don't continue to make a profit at such a rapid rate, it could have more of an affect on the economy than the economic decisions of government leaders of entire smaller countries. Pairing these works emphasizes the true cost of what enables certain companies to make such a profit both historically and in the present: a cost to the health of a targeted group of people.

Yurcisin emphasizing sustainability and the environmental impact of these actions ties right back around again to who is most likely to suffer the consequences of these actions (the rich and powerful can pay to avoid polluted areas and to pay for how their property or livelihoods may be effected by climate change while those resources are systemically made more unavailable to marginalized communities).

When visiting the National Museum for Women in the Arts I saw similar themes like in the Tawny Chatmon Exhibition, Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies, which celebrates black culture and ancestry. The piece Truth Soft-Served, from the series The Reconciliation drew me in. The vertical lines of string cage the girl in while simultaneously being red white and blue, creating a flag you can see through. This goes back to those same themes in American history, using a current image of an American doing a normal mundane task (eating ice cream) and forcing anyone who may not want to view this girl as part of the American identity to have to literally see her through the flag of string that represents the idea of America and it's history. A history that the privileged and powerful have tried to erase, trying to erase the truth of slavery from textbooks. The strategic choice to use string over her image visually weaves her image into what represents American Identity so she cannot be separated from it.

Lesson Plan:

For inspiring a lesson plan, I would want to focus on the big idea of connection, community, and interconnectedness. My goal would be for my classroom to learn about each other and see beyond stereotypes or biases. Like Truth Soft-Served, I would have them both draw within a frame and use string as part of the lesson. Like Black Cage, I would use the string to add an additional element where the students get to work outside a 2d frame and weave something together.

• I'd begin the lesson by giving each kid a printout to draw on. It would have comic book frames dividing the page into 4 horizontal rectangles.

• I would give them markers or colored pencils and tell them they are going to be timed and will have to eventually pass on the piece of paper and let other people draw on their work, so I'd set the expectation that whatever they draw they should focus on meeting the goal of the prompt and not making it the perfect picture. The time element should help keep them from working long and hard on a drawing and then getting upset if someone draws over it.

  
  

• After establishing that expectation I would tell them to draw something in 5 minutes they want or a goal they have in the bottom frame, something important to them. It doesn't have to be serious. I would give them examples to prompt brainstorming:

  Ex: Trying all the cupcakes at a favorite bakery

  Ex: Learning a new language or skill

  Ex: Becoming a veterinarian

  
  

• Then they would have 5 minutes each to draw an obstetrical or barriers they may have to overcome to get what they want in each of the other three boxes. I would give them examples to prompt brainstorming:

  Ex: swarm of bees

  Ex: snowstorm

  Ex: studying for a test

  Ex: not being old enough to have a drivers license to get there

  
  

• Then I'd (also timed, 5 minutes each) have the kids pass the papers around clockwise 3 times. When a student would receive anthers paper, they would be tasked with drawing something to help their friend out. (If they're not sure what their friends drawing is of they can ask for clarification). I would give them examples to prompt brainstorming:

  Ex: an umbrella or shovel to get through rain

  Ex: flashcards or a library

  Ex: a beekeepers suit

  Ex: a map

  Ex: riding bikes together

Purpose: The lesson would prompt students to learn about the different interests and passions of their friends and be prompted to connect over them and work as a community and use their different strengths to help each other reach their goals. Through this art making process the kids would exercise getting to know each other beyond their looks in the way a self portrait would and would engage them in thinking about how they effect the story of each others lives. They would be actively engaged in seeing their interconnectedness and learn to appreciate how others may think differently than them and have unique solutions to problems they may not have thought of.

The final product: would be a comic each kid gets to take home visualizing themselves reaching a goal. Showing the journey to get there in the comic would make sure there's no understating how sometimes its challenging to reach a goal and mistakes have to be made as part of learning. Expecting and accepting mistakes would be part of the art process here, where the pressure to make the artwork perfect would be taken off the kids by saying no one is expected to make anything perfect under the time constraint.

The added element to build off of this lesson would involve string but it would depend on wall space and time. Depending on time it may have to be another days lesson to build off of the original one.

I would shuffle the papers and hang them on the wall. Then I would let the kids choose colorful strings and have them tac one end to their comic and the other to comics they helped out on.

The end result: would be a classroom wall decoration, a collaborative web connecting the kids passions goals and interests together by visualizing all the ways they can support each other as they grow and learn together.