Syllabus
Overview
In the Spring semester, Legacy students will continue building on foundational art skills through experiential art making processes. Students will learn more about the interconnectedness of social justice movements such as abolition, immigration, disability justice and more in relation to the environment. Students will engage in field trips to contextualize their learning in the classroom.
Legacy students will be tasked with digging deeper into the connection between humans and nature, environmental history of Oakland and California, and develop creative solutions to issues central to the next generation. Students will begin to work on individual projects related to environmental advocacy, guided by Black and Native frameworks.
Three Areas of Focus:
Environmental Advocacy - This may look like learning the history of advocacy and the connection between the environment concerns like climate change, air pollution and other forms of oppression, researching issues impacting Oakland communities, increasing awareness and educating others, pushing for change (legislation and culturally), and protecting natural resources and communities.
Sustainable Art - This may look like using sustainable materials (rejecting buying, can we reuse/borrow/forage) and methods in the art room, exploring ways in which people in the past and presently are using sustainable methods in their personal lives and for communities, art focused on conversations around sustainability, and learning about sustainable art movements like Ecological Art, Bio Art, and Eco Design.
Nature As Medium - This may look like ephemeral sculptures and drawings, documentation of the transformation of nature, or natural dyes and pigments made using the natural environment as media or tools for creation, the natural world as inspiration for mimicking nature, and nature as space for site-specific art.
Community Building:
● Field Trips
○ Oakland Museum
○ City Slicker Farms
○ Shoreline Park
○ Chabot Space & Science Center
○ Legacy Summer Camp
● Familial Storytelling
○ What does your environment look like?
○ Has it been the same for you and your family?
○ How so?
● Collaborative Projects
● Check Ins/Circles with Attitudinal Healing Principles
● Games
Class Themes:
● Social Justice and Environmental Justice
○ What are the connections between what we see and how we are treated - racism, sexism, trans/homo/queerphobia, poverty, houselessness/food insecurity and disability?
○ How might local liberation lead to global change?
○ What are some of the issues we see? What is the source?
● Eco Activism Art
○ What types of art (medium, style, etc) communicate what we want others to know about what is important to us?
○ What is happening?
○ Solutions?
○ What are the methods eco activist artists use?
Activities:
● Field Trips
● Resilience Canvas Paintings
● Block Printing Posters + West/East Oakland (OLP) Zine
● Mapping the Local to Understand the Global
● Fiber Arts Collage
● Textural Topographic/Elevation Mapping
● Reflective Mural Project
● Environmental Justice Graphic Novels or Comics
SMART Learning Objectives:
○ articulate environmental concerns faced by their communities and across the globe by designing works of art that speak to individual and collective needs.
○ demonstrate problem solving skills by engaging with different media, selecting appropriate media for personal projects and explaining the significance of media and materiality in visual storytelling.
○ make visually pleasing compositions through increased technical skill and organization of art elements to communicate political stance and ideas by creating several drafts applying techniques learned in class.
○ interpret and synthesize visual texts by closely examining modern and contemporary art and reflect on the artwork of their peers and self via informal critiques, artist statements, and gallery exploration.