Mentor 1
Anne Basting
Location
Union340
Start Date
28-4-2017 12:00 PM
Description
The community of Shorewood has an ongoing challenge with issues of diversity. SAIRs were invited to engage with the Shorewood High School to address these efforts through a year of in-depth observation and collaboration. Our research goal was to find an artistic way to move this issue forward. In turn, we consider if placing SAIRs in city governments can assist them in finding creative solutions to civic challenges. We follow a four stage process of community-engaged arts practice—Observation/Research (attending meetings and visiting the High School); Creative Generation (creating two questions: What is one question you'd wish someone would ask you (in regards to identity/race)? What is a perception that people have about you that is wrong?); Creative Refinement (collecting and analyzing responses); Culminating Event/Evaluation (creating an artistic product to engage the school). Through the collection of responses (audio/written), we create a platform for the school community to view and reflect upon what they have been trying to share and ask all along amongst each other. We provide the artwork as a gift to help sustain their conversations and reflections over time, and prompt students to be more actively involved in their personal and local experiences. We found that by exposing vulnerabilities (such as personal fears and concerns), free-flowing conversations were possible. We found that staff and students were originally overwhelmed with constant attempts to talk about identity and race, thus, this process helps sustain what can be a difficult dialogue. Our hope is to have Shorewood serve as a model for other schools and communities around the world that need the same push. As SAIRs, we found we held a perfect perspective, and were warmly accepted into their community and pre-existing attempts at conversations on identity and race. Hence, we find embedding SAIRs to be crucial for long-term growth.
City as Canvas: Student Artist in Residence embedded in Shorewood Government and Identity, Race, Ethnicity and Diversity Conversations
Union340
The community of Shorewood has an ongoing challenge with issues of diversity. SAIRs were invited to engage with the Shorewood High School to address these efforts through a year of in-depth observation and collaboration. Our research goal was to find an artistic way to move this issue forward. In turn, we consider if placing SAIRs in city governments can assist them in finding creative solutions to civic challenges. We follow a four stage process of community-engaged arts practice—Observation/Research (attending meetings and visiting the High School); Creative Generation (creating two questions: What is one question you'd wish someone would ask you (in regards to identity/race)? What is a perception that people have about you that is wrong?); Creative Refinement (collecting and analyzing responses); Culminating Event/Evaluation (creating an artistic product to engage the school). Through the collection of responses (audio/written), we create a platform for the school community to view and reflect upon what they have been trying to share and ask all along amongst each other. We provide the artwork as a gift to help sustain their conversations and reflections over time, and prompt students to be more actively involved in their personal and local experiences. We found that by exposing vulnerabilities (such as personal fears and concerns), free-flowing conversations were possible. We found that staff and students were originally overwhelmed with constant attempts to talk about identity and race, thus, this process helps sustain what can be a difficult dialogue. Our hope is to have Shorewood serve as a model for other schools and communities around the world that need the same push. As SAIRs, we found we held a perfect perspective, and were warmly accepted into their community and pre-existing attempts at conversations on identity and race. Hence, we find embedding SAIRs to be crucial for long-term growth.
