Artivism: today we were talking about artivism and what that means. Willow spoke to the fact that art is often a medium through which people heal themselves because it allows them to express themselves without having to articulate it into words. I use art as a medium to release anger, frustration, guilt, and even rage. Most people who know me know that I'm not an angry or ragey person, but I have a complex and deep understanding of the inequalities in our world both local and global, both human and environmental, and this often results in a lot of frustration. If I try to express myself using words, often I can not articulate myself well enough or my words fall on deaf ears. I use collage as a method to formulate my thoughts and express what I see. I have made lots of collages that I call counter-culture collages. This one is the most PC of them all which is why I chose this to post!
This one is called, "Paradox" and as you can imagine all the images are paradoxical. I feel that often the best way to get across a message is through stark contrast and illuminate paradoxes, that is what I was trying to achieve with this. This is the first time I've ever posted this anywhere on the internet and I rarely show anyone my collages, only people I really trust. I'm not sure why I don't share them, I think it's because they are for me, they aren't for anyone else because it's my way of venting and releasing.
Thank you for trusting us with your collage. I see that this could make for a great activity in a classroom to discuss contrast, paradoxes, or to make comparisons. I could see it stimulating great conversations! (privilege vs oppression; war vs peace; nature vs infrastructure; and so on!). I tend to be quite private with my work as well...because often the story behind something is too personal but in order to show the piece I seem to feel that it needs the story...that I might not be ready to share. Thank you for being brave and sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for showing us your work. It's thought provoking. Something like collage, which takes skill and careful thought and planning to do well, is also a form that some students who doubt their ability can feel confident about starting and I agree with Laura that it has cross curricular lessons possibilities, especially with social studies, although I think a science collage could be amazing, especially one about ecology or food webs.
ReplyDelete