(Government HOLC Map from the 1930s. Gov. deemed the red/yellow areas risky areas to loan money for housing because they contained higher concentrations of people of color. FDR-sponsored redlining and housing discrimination)

6.     Reflect upon how your thinking about arts-based exploration changed as you were creating/curating images.

One of my own faults in initially thinking about my project, and arts-based research in general, had to do with my own mindset as arts-based explorer.  The researcher who positions himself/herself as an omnipotent being, imparting knowledge and understanding on his/her subjects risks not learning anything. Similarly, the purpose of arts-based exploration is not to enter a feedback loop, re-presenting what is already known, but rather to discover. My own experience living in Freeport, Long Island led me to see firsthand how deeply segregated Nassau county really is. My initial intention was to call out these areas of segregation as racist. As I worked on the maps, I found that more interesting than my own dialogue or narrative were the reactions I was seeing from those whom I shared these maps with. I feel that area is the most fruitful avenue to travel down for further continuation of this project.

7.     Has your thinking/feeling about scholarship changed as you were creating/curating images? How?

  I think that as I was creating my maps, it became clear that the direction of scholarship can morph along the way. It would seem that in order to create a meaningful, visceral piece of art, one needs to follow these threads of passion wherever they might lead.

8.     Did anything unexpected happen as you were working on your project?

Throughout this process of painting and interpreting raw data I began to think deeply about the hyper-segregation of the county that I live in. When my family drives throughout Nassau county, on our way to parks, beaches, or playgrounds, we visit many of these towns, stopping off for coffee, gas, or lunch. I cannot but help to perseverate on the racial makeup of each town, wondering how many of the local population are aware of or even care about the lack of diversity. I initially blamed the homeowner in contributing to the cycle of segregation, but as I read a new book, The Color of Law, it became clear that the decision to segregate these towns was government sponsored. Racism and money buttress and prolong these hegemonic systems, but I began to wonder how aware these homeowners actually are.

9.     Were your objectives at the end of the semester the same as those at the beginning of the semester? Explain.

 In the beginning of the semester my goal was to create a meaningful project while exploring my own visual artistry. After reading Mannahata by Eric Sanderson, Rethinking the Power of Maps and Everything Sings by Denis Wood, and Graphs Maps Trees by Franco Moretti it became clear to me that maps have the potential to stir up emotion in a meaningful way. They don’t have to be sterile and void of feeling. As my process of map making continued, I found that my map would convey a different story depending on which numbers I chose to highlight. I think this speaks to the subjectivity of data, data manipulation, and the amount of power that the artist/researcher has. Embracing my biases and being aware of them as I was painting was important for me, but I wonder to what degree they are transparent in my completed maps. 

10.     What do you think the strengths of your process and products were?

I think the primary strength of my products are the visceral reaction they elicit from viewers. The words census data are inherently dull, but visualizing some of these town populations are much more shocking. I feel I have not yet tapped into another strength, analyzing the conversations that take place upon viewing these maps. What are the reactions of people within these areas, in the non-existent, low and high concentration of black people? What justification do they use to account for these numbers?

11.  What, if any, are the dissatisfactions with what you’ve done?

I am not happy with many of the maps I have made. I feel like they touch on my intentions, but do not go far enough, or are not effective. I was surprised at how time-intensive creating each map actually was. When I was painting, I would try a new technique, with the idea of honing it, or re-doing the map if the idea worked out. A kind of proof of concept. This was the case with the light blue White Population map. In the end, I did not re-visit each technique, and my final products are my initial attempts. I feel that I can revisit these maps in the future, and create more of them as new ideas emerge among my conversations with viewers.

I also struggled with the inclusion/exclusion of numbers and text. Is more information better? Will the viewer get an incomplete picture if my map is simply representative, not descriptive? This is partly why I created many different iterations of the maps. I know that highlighting different concentrations of ethnicities tells a different story, and I wonder if I selected certain datasets to make the maps visually engaging.

12.  Do you plan to continue using arts-based methods as part of your scholarly activities?

I found it very eye-opening to read and listen to the artists that were highlighted in this class. The idea of arts-based research methods was foreign to me and I am pleased to have read and experienced ways in which various artists approach the field. I appreciated how Victoria Restler formed her dissertation and how positively her multimodal approach has been received.

  Gene had mentioned to me that this project could be the basis for an eventual dissertation.  That was very exciting for me to hear, particularly because of how excited I was to work on this project, and how much more untapped potential exists for this exploration. I certainly feel as though my mind is open to using arts-based method in the realm of scholarly activities.

13.  How would you characterize/assess your experience taking this course?

I had a very positive experience taking this course. I had never taken an art-based class before, and I loved thinking about the arts as valid research. I enjoyed hearing my colleagues insights on my project, forcing me to think about my audience, my intentions and new ways to approach my project. I think our class did a nice job exploring and cultivating many voices in the conversation, and I deeply appreciated Gene’s insights into each of our projects. I found the thoughtful replies to our weekly posts inspired me to put much time and energy into the readings, thinking about others’ projects, and my own artistic endeavors.

Furthermore, this class sparked an emotional reaction in my own life, my own neighborhood. I cannot go anywhere in Long Island without thinking, “I know how diverse this town is, but how did it get this way? Are the inhabitants aware of the disparity? Is it intentional and would they keep it that way?” A bigger, unanswered question, is, “How are the school districts chosen? Was there intentional discrimination in their haphazard creation?” I know from my own experience that the school district lines are nonsensical, carving out areas of multiple towns. It brings to mind the current disparity in the regional gerrymandered Congressional maps. This certainly merits further investigation in future maps.

14.  Anything you would like to add?

In many of the articles and works of art we studied, the artist investigates and exposes hidden discrimination and broad forms of hegemony at work. This work encourages the viewers to ask themselves “why and how?” but also to look inward and reflect upon their contribution or silence. I feel that using arts-based research is incredibly important to utilize in today’s fractured social and political environment, because talking at one another has not resulted in much progress. Perhaps a multimodal approach will achieve a greater sense of understanding and create more allies among us. I found this class valuable and deeply appreciated how my thinking on arts-based research evolved, and broadened my initial myopic idea of what it really means to investigate and research an idea through the arts.

1.     What did you set out to do in this class? What were your initial objectives and expectations? Were they personal? Were they political? Did you want to elicit and/or evoke and/or understand or make sense of and/or persuade? What did you want your project to serve and do?

Being a musician, most of my artistic and creative energy is channeled through that medium, so I was very eager to explore my creativity through the visual medium. I was excited to read and think about ways different artists expose hidden ideas and challenge viewer/participants to rethink these situations (Maya Pindyck, Theaster Gates, Victoria Restler). Once the topic of my investigation revealed itself to me, my objective morphed into understanding the deep segregation of the county I live in. Initially, I wanted to shout out this racist census data through my multiple maps, but I calmed down and allowed myself to try to learn from these maps as I viewed the data in different ways. After some initial conversations with colleagues who grew up in Nassau County, it became apparent that this hyper-segregation was not well-known, even shocking many people. Based on those initial reactions, I felt it important to continue this project in order to realize the 2010 census data in a more digestible way.

2.     What was the first arts-based artifact you produced/collected/elicited whether it was a sketch or something more “finished.” What did you produce/collect/elicit next? Make a list of all these pieces and place each in the order in which it was produced and collected.

By first arts-based artifact I produced was a tracing of Nassau County. It was a safe step for me, because it did not require any free-hand drawing. Once I made multiple copies of the county maps, I began to fill them in based upon different parameters. “Percent of Local Population Who Are White, Town By Town”, “Percent of Population Who Are Black, Town by Town”, “Literal Number of Black People, Town By Town”. Viewing these drastic disparities on a visual map felt different than looking at my Excel spreadsheet. The original tracings inspired me to create even more maps, “Red Dots: Areas of Segregation as Evidenced by Low Population of Persons of Color. More Dots = More Segregation”, “Red Lines Border Towns With Black Population 24.1% and higher”, “White Population by Percentage: White = 70% population and higher, Grey = 30%-69% population, Black = 29% population and lower” “Shades of Red: Percent of Population Who Are Black: 0%-.9%, 1%-10%, 10%-20%, 20%-30%, 30%-40%, 40%-50%, 50%-60%, 60%-70%, 70%-80%” and “Population of Each Nassau County Town”

3.     Write down what you were thinking and feeling with each image listed above. You might also document your feelings/thoughts between images.

I will respond to each of the seven maps I created for the final project.

Number of Black People Living in Each Town

This map, which highlights towns with total black populations of 23 and lower, 22 towns in all, made me the most angry as I was creating it. I could not believe how some of these towns with populations of 21,839 (Massapequa) could have a dozen black people. How is it possible to raise an ethical and conscious child in that environment? The number of towns with 0 black people also shook me.I tried to capture some of this emotion through textured paint, dark black and red paint cordoning off the areas where the black communities lives. In between the town lines of these highlighted towns are words which highlight the responsibility of humanity and sentiments which contribute to this segregation mindset.

Red Lines Border Towns With Black Population 24.1% and Higher

In this map, I attempted a new technique for me, tracing my map stencil over a whitewashed newspaper collage of images related to the housing market, banks that contribute to segregation and redlining by not lending to people of color, and housed of Long Island, obscured because they are unattainable. This map has no visible numbers, but its stark red lines outline towns whose black population is 24.1% and higher, a remarkably small number of towns, closely positioned out of sight and out of view of the white communities.

White Population by Percentage

In this map, I tried to create a whimsical, cloudlike carefree evocation, symbolic of the (willful) ignorance by the white population of Nassau County. Literally, this map serves to inform white population by percentage. The variation of these numbers seem casual, and non-alarming at quick glance. 64%, 80%, 55.2%, 43.1%, 73%, 57.7%. The point of this map is to put one’s mind at ease, or challenge one’s assumption of what it means to be within an acceptable range of population. It is only when this map is viewed with its sister maps that the discrimination against the black population becomes apparent.

This map led me to wonder what an ideal range of  % of population across ethnicities actually is. As of 2010, New York state was 65.7% white and 15.9% black. The NYC metro area was 44.6% White to 25.1% Black.  The USA as a whole was 72% white and 13% black. We picked our town of Freeport to live in because it was one of the most diverse towns in Nassau County: 23.8% White, 31.6% Black, 42% Hispanic. Is that a good ratio? Are these communities segregated within each town? If you keep looking closer, do these separate ethnicities interact with one another?

Red Dots: Areas of Segregation as Evidenced by Low Population of Persons of Color. More Dots = More Segregation

This map was my attempt at abstract art. I again wanted to capture some of my anger at this hyper-segregation through a solid white county map with raised, white border lines. I made the background by dipping my brush in black paint and writing angry words related to discrimination, racist lending practices, and words that hypothetical people say to make themselves feel better about their mostly white villages. None of these words are visible (Victoria Restler), but I know that they are beneath the map, laying the foundation for the violence on top of it. The red dots are meant to evoke blood spatter, and are more prevalent among areas that exhibit more segregation.

White Population by Percentage: White = 70% population and higher, Grey = 30%-69% population, Black = 29% population and lower

This map is where I start to view the different shades of black population in not so black and white terms. I have three ranges of colors and the result is a more nuanced picture of the placement of segregated communities. The amount of white-painted towns is meant to stand out. I soaked this canvas in steeped tea (thanks to Gene for the idea), intended to make the white paint stand out more vividly. There is an aged effect to the painting, and that is important because of how long state-sponsored segregation has existed in our country.

Shades of Red: Percent of Population Who Are Black: 0%-.9%, 1%-10%, 10%-20%, 20%-30%, 30%-40%, 40%-50%, 50%-60%, 60%-70%, 70%-80%

This was the most recent map I created, and it is intended to be an inverse view of redlining within Nassau County. Here, the most segregated areas are painted blood red, a play on my other maps, where the oppressed group is highlighted. These areas of deep red have black populations of 0% to under 1%. A shocking statistic. The color of blood red lightens slightly as we reach the 1%-10% black population threshold, but by then, almost the entire map is engulfed in blood. The remaining remaining 11 towns on the map are lightened by a greater mixture of white paint, until we reach the town of Hempstead, painted white with an almost imperceptible shade of red. 77% black, and 7.7% white.

Population of Each Nassau County Town

This map came into being after viewing the six small maps I created. The percentages and population numbers in the tens seemed to lose meaning when divorced from the reality of that town’s total population. This map is intended to be a key that the viewer refers back to.  Understanding the names of these towns, how many people actually live in them is important. I intend on displaying this map in the center of the wall, with the six maps surrounding it in a circle, so that they may all be viewed and thought upon together at the same time.

4. What was the relationship between you and your materials? Why did you choose the materials you chose? How did the materials you used mediate your thinking? Did the relationship between you and your materials change over the course of the semester? How?

I have no experience painting and I was always charmed by acrylic paint on canvas. I was excited to buy my own brushes and experiment, but nervous to mess up the canvas. I found that I was very focused and intent on not messing up as I painted. As a result, I found my artwork to be quite deliberate and literal. I tried to branch out and paint in a more abstract manner, but I am not sure how successful I was in tapping into my more visceral emotions. I feel like I was able to experiment with texture, layering, and color mixture, but could have gone much further with abstraction.

5.     Did you find it necessary to add text or sound to your imagery? If so, why

Early on, I thought it would be powerful to emit field recordings from different areas of my map, in order to more deeply develop an image of each town on the map. I had this idea of drawing a map on a masonite board, drilling out a hole for speakers, then using a computer program, MaxMSP, to map these sounds with different contact points on the map. Alternatively, I could have recorded people viewing the maps and commenting on them. These conversations could provide a constant background-noise for the viewer via headphones or emitted through mounted speakers.

I am still debating creating small placards beneath each one of my maps, providing a title and the least amount of information necessary to engage with the maps. I wrestled with how necessary it is to include data on the maps, and which data to highlight. In the Shades of Red map, I am changing my mind as to whether or not to include the percentage of black population within each town, or if the shading is enough to tell the story. The numbers sub 10% are pretty shocking, and I think I will eventually add them, perhaps with black paint and a brush.

Upon visiting Maya Pindyck’s website, I clicked on the About tab to orient myself before viewing the Projects.  The phrase “ordinary violence” immediately jumped out and shook me. I have never heard or seen this phrase before and the incongruity of it is so upsetting. The subtext of the phrase led me to reflect upon how any violence becomes ordinary. I imagine this happens through any combination of willful ignorance, a person’s refusal to be someone’s ally in humanity, and the self-imposed invisibility of oppression among society.

After looking through the Projects, it seems to me that Pindyck’s work evokes despair and hidden, multi-layered meanings. In her drawings, the many lines and shadows create depth for the human characters. I tend to interpret the animals as a representation of humanity’s less thoughtful, more reptilian-brain based actions, but I’m not sure if this is intended. I see overt violence in the way the red lines of the american flag drip and bleed downward, and I see hidden violence in the unbodied heads obscured with shadow and shading.

 The work entitled Language Matter/s Haptic Readings resonated with me on an emotional level. I thought back to my own map creation, where I am challenged with representing numerical information through visual ways, and I am struck how Pindyck can create movement, sorrow, and an urgency to look deeper by manipulating the paper through burns, paint, tears, and ink.  The poetry that has been heightened with “interference” speaks to individuals obscuring some meaning while highlighting others. Pindyck’s work also invites viewers to engage with the art through multi-sensory, and participatory ways. Some of her art has been created in a way that allows the viewer to engage with the art in a non-traditional sense (walking through a house fitted to feel like a river, community poetry projects, or participatory viewing/creating in Today I Saw). I felt a multi-sensory response when viewing the Governors Island Art Fair photographs. They blended poetry, architecture and visual art in a 3-dimensional participatory space. In some of the pieces, I could almost smell the burning of the paper, or feel the dirtiness of the street-trodden America sign. This “haptic” transformation of the source material informs the consumption of the artwork, encouraging the viewer to have a more visceral reaction then simply reading text or viewing a painted canvas.

The work that Victoria Restler has created, through her websites “Those who can” and “Re-visualizing care: the digital assemblage” seek to explore and showcase teacher stories, evoke their “care spaces” in a non-conventional manner, and to challenge the perception of what it means to in/visibly educate in individual and unique places.

Through her rubbing of the classroom space, Restler reimagines the classroom space in an abstract but strikingly literal way. In her field notes Restler writes, “I am making these drawings to show that schools and classrooms are real places with real people in a human scale as opposed number or letter scores, which are abstract, sanitized, and identical, one to the next” (rubbing every object and surface in betty’s math classroom, 2017). The rubbings are tactile, varied, confusing, yet organized. They are one piece of evidence of the complicated and layered life of a classroom/school environment. Bearing witness(!) as she writes.

There is a NEED for a multimodality approach to convey the thorniness of the school environment and all that goes with it. Restler speaks of these rubbings as adding shade, depth, and texture to teacher stories and lived experiences in the classroom (witnessing/ evidence, 2017). They are nuancing the story to challenge the narrative gleaned directly from a sanitized evaluation dispossessed from the subtleties of teaching. I am thinking of Pink and her paper on Multimodality, multisensoriality and ethnographic knowing and how it allowed me to open my mind to the limits of traditional senses (Pink, 2011). Restler’s work affords opportunity to become attuned to the living/breathing aspect of a situation in ways that text does not. Restler views her field notes, interviews, and the rubbings as being “textured and bumpy, and in particular and evocative ways, they shape the stakes of my multimodal data” (witnessing/ evidence, 2017). This is an amazing interpretation of her many modes of collecting and conveying information. The rubbings also speak to the impossibility of representation and subjectivity, the “irreducibility of teaching” as she puts is, but adds necessary context and nuance in a meaningful way. Most poignantly, in my opinion, is Restler’s ability to reveal that which was obscured, overlooked, and invisible, in service to the wholly incomplete narrative of what a classroom is and what teachers are.

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/

Christina Trowbridge’s piece “Drawing Attention” was very powerful because it highlights a way to use art as a mindful intervention among a population of people for whom reflection and contemplation is immensely important. Within this reading, first year teachers reflect on both this experience and their day to day experience in the classroom. One middle school teacher wrote, “I constantly think that there is no hope for humanity”. This shook me as an extremely visceral comment, but speaks to the incredible pressures that New York City teachers are under.  There is a clear need for mindful interventions and teacher wellness. Trowbridge’s diorama as a heuristic model seems like a wonderful way to “focus attention to contemplation, reflection, and meditation” in a new environment that still stimulates learning in a calm and centered way.

In my own project, I am continuing to paint more maps, and I can sympathize with drawing as a focused meditation exercise. I am looking forward to visiting the museum, speaking with Christina Trowbridge, and engaging in this diorama drawing to promote conversations and reflections on teaching and learning.

We lost last week’s class, so I am posting some paintings that I have been working on. Each map is color coded based on various information gleaned from the 2010 census in Nassau County. The top left is the population of White people in each town (also, I was experimenting with using glaze to make the image opaque/transparent, because I want to paint a map over collaged newspaper clippings but still have the clippings present). The top right has the red paint highlighting the highest disparities of white-black populations. More red=more disparity. Bottom right is the literal number of black people in each town, and there are words/phrases related to this redlining cause/effect on the borders of downs with the most egregious segregation. Bottom left is color coded based on diversity of towns. White = 70% white population and higher. Grey is 31-69% white population. Black is where white population is 29% and lower. Also, I tried staining the canvas with coffee. I am thinking of nailing this one to a piece of wood.

I am eager to hear your feedback and comments on the art in progress!

Thanks,

Nick

Process:  I used my time this week to focus on creating with my project. I decided to use canvas with acrylic paints and it was an exciting process because this is the first time I have ever painted on canvas (I was nervous to begin, because I didn’t want to mess up). Logistically, I had some difficulty transferring my map outline to the canvas. I had traced my map outline on 8.5″x11″ paper, so I decided to tape one map to the 8″x10″ canvas. I drew in heavy pen, hoping some outline would bleed through to the canvas below, but it ended up piercing the paper and cutting/drawing as I went town by town around Nassau County. Clearly there must be an easier way to do this.

I then used a paint pen (sacrilegious?) to make the borders appear darker, and then filled in white/black to signify towns with at least 30% white/black population. I tried to build up the red borders between the black communities so it was almost a visible wall. I then scoured some articles in the newspaper for phrases and words that symbolize this racist layout of Nassau county, pasting them as borders around the most segregated towns. Finally, I painted the literal number of black citizens in each town (30 people or less) as of the 2010 census.

Reflection:  I would like to find a way for the white part of the map to pop out more, because it is too similar to the canvas color itself. Painting the surrounding areas of the map blue, as water and an island, could symbolize the isolation of this segregation. My wife also had the idea of collaging some images around the borders of the painting, images that relate to the housing/social discrimination which led us here (Levittown house ads, black soldiers coming home from WWII, banks who deny home mortgages to people of color). I am not sure if this will clutter the image or add to the story.

Going forward:  It is my intention to make multiple maps, because depending on what data I include, a different story is told. The map showing percentage of white population tells a different story that the one showing black population. I also want a bigger map so I can fit the towns names within the borders (someone recommended projecting the image of my map on a smart board, taping a canvas to the smart board and tracing over the image). I had an idea to paint this map on different backgrounds, as well, perhaps some that evoke different emotions . After hearing the reaction of someone who, when looking at one iteration of data on the map, was in disbelief, I thought I could record people’s reactions to seeing the map, and then using these sounds as a background (over headphones?) for the display. Another idea is to collect field-recordings in public spaces in some of these towns, and map them through contact points within the map, so that when you touch it, it will give you an idea of sound from that area. All of these ideas are floating in my head, and I’m not sure how much of it I will be able to accomplish this semester. I will bring my initial creation on Wednesday so I can get feedback from everyone.

Pink writes about scholars embracing multimodality as a way to more holistically understand and engage with society and culture. When engaging with people from a different worldview or lived experience, I think it is extremely important to embrace respect, humility, and an open mind. Ken Tobin writes about “becoming like the other by being in with” (Heidegger, 1996) in terms of learning from others by existing in a co-researcher environment. A researcher, or arts-based researcher, should be mindful of the inherent power structures in any given situation. The researcher should be giving a voice to the society and culture they are studying, while learning from them. Being in with. When Pink writes about “the ethnographer as apprentice”, she is giving power and the knowledge to the people ‘being studied’, affording them respect as the knowledge-holders, instead of the colonialistic approach.

After reading the Jordan article on Gordon Matta-Clark, I began thinking about arts-based research at a more local level. Reading current newspapers and thinking about injustice can drive one to feelings of helplessness and resignation, but this article highlighted potential outlets for everyone.  “Matta-Clark enacted this (physical and social transformation) on a hyperlocal level by addressing the concerns of a micro-community”. “Socially engaged artwork…can concurrently serve as an aesthetic proposition and as a method to ameliorate problematic political and economic structures”, however daunting a task that is (Jordan, 2017).

In terms my own arts-based research, I would like to hear opinions of others on the projects I am considering. I struggle to think of a project that would be meaningful to me and respectful of that which I am investigating. I am leaning towards an investigation of current children’s picture books. What messages they convey, what they say about what “our” society values, and who and what  is (not) being represented. I imagine investigating many books from the library, purchasing those that stand out to me, cutting and rearranging them in some way.

Additionally, after recently moving to Long Island, I am horrified at how completely the neighborhoods are segregated. There appears to have been some serious red-lining going on here and I think a project based around this might be worthwhile. The phrase “red-lining” is inherently visual and I wonder if a map-based project focusing on boundaries or barriers could be interesting. In any event, I’d love to hear classmates’ thoughts on this.