I gave the students in both of my Art2 classes the assignment of writing summative reflections on selected Throughlines and Understanding Goals from the Shelter Project. (2 of my choice, 2 of theirs) In addition, I asked the students to come up with 3 questions based on their experiences doing the project. I suggested three types of questions for students to consider as they formulated them: Questions that came up for them during the project, questions about things that were unclear to them and questions about things they’d like to know more about. Below are some of the students’ summative thoughts and questions organized according to which of the Throughlines or Understanding Goals the students were responding to.
WATCH THIS SPACE OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS FOR MORE STUDENT REFLECTIONS AND QUESTIONS.
How can artists be part of global conversations about important and relevant topics and issues?
Royce C, Grade 12 wrote:
Artists can be a part of global conversations because some work they do can totally reflect on their ideas about some things going on all over the world. A lot of artists focus solely on things happening around them and not so much on the big picture, and the things they can help out with all over the globe.
However, if you take Swoon as an example, she (like most people) heard of the disaster in Haiti. But whereas most of us simply thought “Wow, how horrible”, or donated 50 cents into a jar at the supermarket Swoon took making a difference into her own hands and flew herself to Haiti with this great idea of how to make a home totally earthquake-resistant and easy to make and she really made a difference for a lot of people in Haiti.
Everyone in this class is an artist, and we made ourselves part of important topics and issues in the form of shelter. We made our own shelters and we learned a lot about people living in slums and in poverty around the world. It’s a struggle, but if you set your mind to it, you can become an artist that does more than pleases the eye with their work but helps out a good cause.
Royce C’s 3 Questions:
- How can people who actually need to construct their own shelters find resources such as hammers, saws and nails?
- Can the shelters we built actually survive a long time out in the elements? Why or Why not? Explain.
- How can the average person help a homeless person build a shelter here in America?
Paige D, Grade 12 wrote:
“Artists can be a part of global conversations about important and relevant topics and issues. We got to experience this firsthand while working on the Shelter Project. We also saw this in the videos about the artist Swoon. The blog really helped us to have conversations with people doing the same project as us. We got to see what students at other schools in the U.S. are doing as well a school in India. The blog helped us to see what other people thought about the same topic which opened our range of thinking.
Also, the videos about the artist Swoon showed her going to Haiti and helping people build shelters and turning them into artworks. Swoon was helping the people of Haiti by making a difference in their lives. She was having global conversations by actually traveling to a different country. Swoon was applying her artwork to real-life situations.
Artists can impact other people depending on where their art is located. This is called installation art because of where it it is placed. Like the shelters we built, which are in the front of the school. Anyone driving by can view them. Our shelters are also site-specific artworks because they were meant to go in that specific place.
We also had conversations with other students at WHS and with 5th graders at Peralta elementary school which got us to think about shelter in new ways.
Paige D’s 3 questions:
- Did people that saw our shelters think about what they were for, or did they just drive by?
- Did anyone actually think of our shelters as art?
- How do people in slums find stable enough materials to make shelters they can actually live in?
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