When I went to the American Art Museum in Washington, DC, I saw this huge art piece of a map that I think about every time I hear about your project.

Here is an article about it.

Here is a video about it.

Professor G. Fellner
Arts-based Research
Shawn Brown
3/27/18

Border Patrol
By Shawn Brown

Reading borders reminded me of my students. My student population is 90% Latino. I had a conversation yesterday with my staff about considering new ways to engage our students. We looked at data that addressed innovative teaching strategies and culturally responsive pedagogy. Within the research, there was minimal mention of using arts. The use of visual arts as a conduit for improved student outcomes was an afterthought for myself also. Having the students share their experiences in America and their views about their home country was fascinating. As Americans we can believe that we reside in the best country on earth. Regardless of poverty and lack of employment migrants have an affinity to their homes that America can never eliminate. My mother still speaks of moving back to Panama. She visits often and gathers as many embroidered leather key chains as possible. She’s especially in love with the specific hue of gold that is produced from her home country. The proportion of space equally distributed to both countries with the artwork drew my attention. The article states, “The page in half, intimating that half of the self is in one country and half in another.” I remember Dubois speaking of this dual-existence/consciousness. Feeling that you are are in “two places at once.” The project seemed to create a safe environment for students to share their issues, concerns, and challenges in navigating a new land. While charting these unfamiliar waters, students are whisked away by currents of cultural assimilation and isolation from family. Students have to choose between their family’s and America’s culture. Shreefter speaks of, “The painful distance that grows between parents and children as children speak more English and become less Mexican.” This transition is painful but necessary for the students to be successful inherently racist society. Most parents I encounter are happy that their children can speak a different language, but they also do not want them to be engulfed in an American culture that does not have certain Latino family values. Students and parents desire equity when in school. Rocio Alaniz (Student) states, “I want school to be even and equal, for students, and teachers to respect us and our language and culture.” Schools have become battlegrounds of culture. Linguistic aptitudes have been associated with intellect. Speaking Spanish is seen as a deficit. E.L.L (English Language Learners) is a demeaning title given to students in schools. The categorization assumes that the priority is to learn English, the best language. As students learn English and American culture, they move away from their families. Similarly, to Native American assimilation, they lose their cultural identity. Many students are wedged between academia, language, and culture.

As I read the students’ articles and look at their artwork, I think of the rhetoric of walls/borders that is presently taking place in politics. Walls that will push others out and somehow strengthen a nation. The absurdity of such a notion is counter-intuitive. A nation that was made strong by adding migrants to its numbers will continue to do so by pushing them out is nonsensical. The symbolism of borders transcends physicality. Internally we are socialized to have borders of color, gender, and sexuality. Our civility is stripped bare each time a sitcom airs, the news is reported, and the national anthem is played. The student’s artwork speaks louder than essays and standardized exams. I am tasked with rating how teachers assess students. In this position, I am prone to value written words over visual representation. This article altered my perception of assessing students. I look forward to using this strategy, specifically in my humanities courses. I must first assure staff members that they have the freedom and autonomy to be creative pedagogues. I have to remove portions of the box that was created around their instruction. One side is Danielson’s framework, the other standardized testing, the other administrative bias, and on the other their realistic understanding of what is best for students.
I must consciously patrol the borders of my heart and the educational system in which I am stationed for duty. As I stand guard, I must be willing allow those seeking refuge to roam free. I must keep an eye on the curriculum and ensure that there is room for creativity, leaving entry points for all students. I must monitor classrooms that can be sources of hope or the academic burial grounds of those that didn’t entirely adhere to hegemonic beliefs of the dominant culture.

I can’t tell if my sentimentality is holding me back or enhancing my work. As I thought back to my prep work before making this collage, the process of sorting through my collection of images, I realized that the images I gravitate toward–and eventually use in my collages–are the ones that hold a deeper meaning to me.  For example, with this new collage, I started with over thirty images and only five made it into the final piece.  (I’m not counting the numbers. They’re just how I’m marking chronological time across my collages).

This collage–to me–symbolically tells the story of the first eight years of Kerouac’s life. And in a way, it also tells the story of my own childhood.  It seems like when I get into the meditative space of arranging images, I tell Kerouac’s story as well as my own. I choose a composition of images that speaks to our similarities. It’s more than just biographical art-based research now.

We have to think about who our research and art is supposed to serve. Who is my audience? This question doesn’t hold me back from creating my collages, but it does keep me from sharing them. I’m not sure if another living soul would understand what this collage is saying.  And that makes me wonder if the time and energy I’m putting into the creation of these is more for my benefit than for my audience’s.

The Cougar Diorama at the Grand Canyon. I imagine that I am that lady cougar lying there and my husband is the male cougar and we are going to take over the landscape.

It is amazing how art can evoke and promote reflexivity over and over again.

Pictures of AMNH. Thank you Gene and Cristina for making this all possible!

Each time I go to the American Museum of Natural History I have a new experience. Cristina’s activities deepened my thinking of doing visual and arts-based research. I didn’t have to think twice to draw what I saw from the diorama below. I became lost with the diorama as I was drawing a portion of the scene that stood out to me.  The sharing opportunity was memorable because I believe we all have a stronger connection with each other and with the course as a result of this authentic experience.

Reflecting on this picture brings back more memories and raised awareness that visual and arts-based research welcomes multiple voices, meanings, and perspectives.  I remember visiting with my son’s class last year, and if I recall correctly, each of the students thought that the animals were real. They also had to draw and reflect on what exhibit stood out to them, but because of the day time rush experience being at AMNH, I am not sure if the students captured the dioramas? Perhaps a night experience would be best for them.  What I take from these varied experiences is that regardless of the groups that visit AMNH, each person will define his or her own meaning of what he or she believe’s to be important.

As I think about my own project I am no longer concerned of the message that my visual media project will convey but that it will evoke a feeling of wanting to go to see an advisor. More reflections to come, stay tuned.

Visiting the museum was a wonderful experience for me. I found the drawing of the dioramas when we were by ourselves most meaningful. I drew the mountain goat diorama, and I got really lost in the scene. The interesting thing for me was how the first angle I choose really drew me into the mountains and being in the mountains and clouds brought out a feeling of awe and wonder for me. Towards the end, I changed my angle to be more focused on the goats. There was a baby goat looking up at its parents. There was something hesitant and sort of forlorn to me about that part of the scene. Hard to explain why, but it definitely drew me into a different sort of feeling and understanding about what was going on. I was interested by how much one scene offers when it depicts the complexity of every day life. This is of special interest to me because of work pedagogical work engaging with people about the dialectics of every day life and systems of oppression. As I mentioned earlier, Paulo Freire is a particular source of inspiration to me about how to use visual depictions of moments of life that spark generative and collective inquiry about the ways the structural shows up in the interpersonal and the interpersonal shows up in the structural.

In terms of my project, the trip to the museum got me thinking about the environment in which I choose to do my work. I think of my project as tapping into experiences I’ve had and the work I do with fabric, paint and paper extending out of that connection between emotion, memory and my hand’s movement. Being in the museum, I realized how much our environment (where we choose to sit, what we choose to look at, what we might be listening to at the time) effects our interrelated systems of motor movement, cognitive processing, emotional wisdom and insight.

I also started to think about adding another element into my work. I’m interested in thinking about rubbings of surfaces in places that are significant to me as being the back drop to the text and fabric I put over that. I’m still not certain about it, but I put paper over parts of the door frames and the wooden floor in my mother’s apartment and drew over it with colored paper to see what that felt like to me (I think I would need a different kind of paper because it was hard to see the texture on regular computer paper). I’m going to have to move out of my mom’s apartment at the end of April (that story of NYC real estate and how bad succession law is for rent stabilized apartments could be another piece). So, the idea of how a rubbing brings your into the physicality of a place felt important, especially in light of the conversations we had earlier about how physical care taking work is and how the searching I’ve done around connection and loss is such a step by step, day by day, action by action type of experience.

I’d love to get started with really starting to make something this weekend. I’m still thinking about where and when and the environment I’d create around myself. I’ll keep updating this thread with my plan because I think that will give me the encourage to get going!

Week 7 Posting Arts-Based Research

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my maps and the census data. While it borders on the edge of obsession, it seems to resonate with me. After looking at the data in Excel, I was horrified at how segregated Long Island really is/was in 2010. I began to sort the numbers within Excel, noticing that a different story was revealing itself based on my parameters.  I think about how art can be used to bring light to issues, but I know that I oftentimes engage with people within my own bubble. I want these maps to initiate a conversation with people who think differently than me and I’m not sure how to accomplish that.

I showed a colleague (lifetime Long Islander) an early drawing of one map, with the racial makeup of the towns, and it elicited an extremely strong reaction. Disbelief, wonder, shock. I myself am feeling similar emotions as I create the maps. I am trying to find ways to represent different datasets on each map, giving respect and attention to another part of the story. It is interesting that depending on which parameters I choose to highlight from the census data, my map will reflect a different story. For example, a map with the threshold of 20% black population in my color-coding will look entirely different than a map with a threshold of 16%. I feel that I am almost manipulating the data to tell the story I “want” to tell. I suppose this is a lesson that data can be manipulated in order to serve the purpose of the writer and as such, I am trying to make many different maps in order to tell many stories specifically to protect against my inherent bias. On the other hand, I suppose it is my prerogative as the artist to convey what I want to convey.

I made a stencil of a map on a large canvas, and I am thinking of treating this map as a kind of information key for the viewer. On this map, I want to have each town name and total population listed within the borders. This way, the other maps will have more meaning and power, as my chosen datasets are put in context of the town’s population at-large. Including a map with each town’s name will serve the purpose of calling out the worst offenders, and bring local recognition to Long Islanders who view the maps, potentially eliciting more, “Holy crap! Massapequa is that segregated/racist?” (Inductive reasoning leads me to imagine that higher levels of segregation = reinforcement of more racist views/actions, but I am aware how dangerous this thinking can be). I also wonder if I should make my compiled 2010 Census data available to the viewer, or if this is simply too much information.

The other point I am trying to make with this map is a belief that this hyper-segregation is contributing segregated ways of thinking and knowing. How open to polysemia or embracing difference can a towns-person be if they are only seeing white in their schools, grocery stores, parks, and public spaces? Furthermore, how can children of these townspeople learn to interact with people from different backgrounds?  I imagine that it is in these environments when stereotypes and racial biases run rampant, with young people only able to entertain interacting with a person from another race in their imagination.

Having never painted before, I have tried many different techniques to try to achieve what I view in my head and that is why my maps are all different. I would love to share my work in person to get an idea of which maps work, which maps could be redone, and any other ideas anyone has to push me in the right direction. Apologies for the long post.

Nick

Racist HOLC Map from the US Govt in 1930s where they color coded neighborhood desirability based on ethnic makeup. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/