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Intentionality: AN Evolving process
Intentionality: AN Evolving process
Over the past three years, creating slide decks has been a process of learning, inquiry, reflection, and revision. We want to share our journey with you.
THE INTENTION OF ART FINDERS:
As we create digital resources for teaching with art, we purposefully shift away from highlighting works with a Eurocentric focus, aiming to be mindful of the potential impact of the works we do choose. In doing so, we strive to foster a better space of belonging for all students and viewers.
We make efforts to center artwork by and depicting people whose identities have been historically marginalized in museums and art education, and promote artworks that expand narratives and bring inclusive histories in to the conversation.
A PROCESS OF INQUIRY, REFLECTION, AND REVISION
The collaborators on Art Finders have been engaged in many conversations about how to select works for students with intention and our goals in mind. In the last years of our program, we have had the luxury of people focused on getting into the weeds and going down the rabbit hole, collaboratively taking dedicated time to wrestle with the complexities of image selection and how it can impact students.
The process requires a great deal of personal reflection from the individual, and recognition that we can benefit from the multiple perspectives that come from group work. Our approach attempts to emphasize inclusion and telling stories that do not inadvertently contribute to bias over including a wider diversity of identities in our slide decks. There is a constant back and forth on "how to do it well" as we look at art work through this lens. For example (but not limited to):
Are we falling into tokenism?
If there is only one work by an artist of a marginalized identity, what inadvertent messages are we sending through our selection of images?
Are we over-prioritizing artists of color and other artists with historically marginalized identities?
El Anatsui (Ghanaian, born in 1944, active in Nigeria), Black River, 2009. Aluminum, bottle caps and copper wire. Towles Fund for Contemporary Art, Robert L. Beal, Enid L. Beal and Bruce A. Beal Acquisition Fund, Henry and Lois Foster Contemporary Purchase Fund, Frank B. Bemis Fund, and funds donated by the Vance Wall Foundation. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY. 2010.586. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/541626
The "mirrors and windows" that we aim to provide stem from documented evidence of the importance for students to see themselves reflected in curriculum. Even if a student doesn't see themselves represented in multiple ways -- which is certainly the ideal -- an intentional inclusion of many different identities encourages all students to see there isn't an assumption of one thing.
John Wilson, (American, 1922-2015), Self Portrait, 1946. India ink on paper, mounted on laminated paper board. Emily L. Ainsley Fund. Copyright John Wilson. 2010.216 https://collections.mfa.org/objects/535056/
What we are doing in this presentation is sharing our methods and process to hopefully provide you with a foundation to work from in your circles of colleagues and districts.
The "categories for discussion" are an attempt to organize the thought process and discussion generated by creation of our slide decks into areas of consideration. We recognize that these categories are not singular and independent-they slide over and into one another as the discussion goes deeper, and more questions arise.
There's a lot of great art out there! We can hope to center, rather than marginalize, as we try to "normalize" teaching with art by a wide range of artists and depicting people around the globe, across time, and of many backgrounds.
SEE THE CATEGORIES FOR DISCUSSION FOR A MORE IN DEPTH LOOK AT WHAT QUESTIONS COME UP WHEN SELECTING WORKS.
SEE THE CATEGORIES FOR DISCUSSION FOR A MORE IN DEPTH LOOK AT WHAT QUESTIONS COME UP WHEN SELECTING WORKS.
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