7-10
IDEAS: CONSTRUCTING
OURSELVES AND OUR WORLD
1. Cultural Stereotypes: “Where Do I Come From?
Artmaking
Year 10 Digital Photographic Shoot
Practice: Ideas - Cultural Stereotypes “Where Do
I Come From?” Students plan what cultural stereotype they identify
with and collect costumes and props to wear for the shoot.
Practice: Actions – Students and teacher set up an
area suitable as a site for a photo shoot. It needs to be able to be left
for several days. Backdrops should be bland (white paper or fabric). Lighting
needs to be flexible - can be hand held lights so they can be constantly
moved- it does not need to be expensive equipment, spotlights, even with
coloured globes, from a Hardware store are excellent. Students dress up
and using their own digital cameras or the schools’, take a series
of photos, including close-up, and in a variety of poses and lighting situations,
of each other in their cultural stereotypes. Students to download images
onto computers and using photoshop and/or iphoto modify images to produce
the 4 best prints signifying best the cultural stereotype.
Critical and historical Interpretations
Study of the work of contemporary Iranian installation artist Ghazel, whose
identity has been constructed by her Islamic religion and Iranian culture
but overlain and modified by a sense of cultural displacement. Ghazel expresses
her sense of a female identity caught between cultures through the use of
the traditional garment worn by Islamic women, the hijab, but worn in circumstances
that are more associated with western, European, materialistic culture.
She makes herself the subject of video installations wearing this garb as
a potent symbol of her original culture within settings that are the antithesis.
She also produces series of still photographs of herself as a cultural stereotype.
2. Identity: “You Are What You Wear”
Artmaking
Year 10 Installation
Practice: Ideas - Human Identity Constructed by our Clothing.
“You Are What You Wear” Students plan what identities they can
construct with particular items of clothing – these can be garments,
shoes, hats etc. and work as a group to construct one installation. Ideas
and actions documented in VAD.
Practice: Actions – Students and teacher choose an
area suitable as a site for the installation and devise methods for displaying
the clothes, e.g. on wire coat hangers and hung in a small tree, or pinned
over a whole wall, or shoes covering the floor of the school hall or part
of the playground in concentric circles, or … Students document the
installation by taking a series of photos, including close-up, and from
a variety of positions and lighting situations. Students to download images
onto computers and using photoshop and/or iphoto modify images to produce
the 4 best prints of the installation.
Critical and historical Interpretations
Study of the work of contemporary Iranian installation artist Ghazel, whose
identity has been constructed by her Islamic religion and Iranian culture
but overlaid
and modified by a sense of cultural displacement. Ghazel expresses her sense
of a female identity caught between cultures through the use of the traditional
garment worn by Islamic women, the hijab, but worn in circumstances that
are more associated with western, European, materialistic culture. She produces
series of still photographs of herself as a cultural stereotype. Comparison
with the installations of Christian Boltanski where he uses many items of
clothing to signify the people who are no loner wearing them.
3. Identity “Message in a Bottle: We Are Family”
Artmaking
Year 10 Installation
Practice: Ideas - “Message in a Bottle: We Are Family”
The family is a human construct that relies on groups of people living and
working together. Students plan an installation based on all the members
of their family (including extended family, pets) collecting images of each,
either photos, small drawings or paintings of each member of the family
and a clear glass bottle in which to place each image. They will work as
a group to construct one installation. Ideas and actions documented in VAD.
Practice: Actions – Students and teacher choose a
suitable way to display the bottles as an installation e.g. part of the
playground which can be viewed from above in concentric circles, or covering
every step of a stairway, or stacked on shelves in the Library, or…
Students document the installation by taking a series of photos, including
close-up, and from a variety of positions and lighting situations. Students
to download images onto computers and using photoshop and/or iphoto modify
images to produce the 4 best prints of the installation.
Critical and historical Interpretations
Study the work of Navin Rawanchaikul, a contemporary South-East Asian installation
artist who sees his role as a social activist. He has an on-going interest
in the daily lives of ordinary people in Thailand and so uses themes based
on the changing identities of his local communities in the wake of westernisation,
urbanisation and industrialisation. Rawanchaikul collects images of the
old people from the villages around his home and displays them in hundreds
of bottles, most often in a conical system of shelves which are designed
to be placed in public places to raise awareness for the loss of identity
these people experience.
4. Identity: Rituals of Living
Artmaking
Year 10 Performance/Installation
Practice: Ideas – After studying the installation
“They Give Evidence” by Dadang Christanto, students plan a performance/installation
based on rituals symbolising life. They work as a group to plan what objects
and actions can symbolise life e.g. arranging flowers, pouring water, lighting
candles etc. and assign members of the class to perform the rituals. Class
to choose appropriate sounds to accompany the work. Planning ideas and actions
documented in VAD.
Practice: Actions – Students and teacher choose a
suitable site for the performance and invite members of the school body
to interact with the performance as an audience, e.g. part of the playground,
School oval or Hall. Students gather objects to be used and practice simple
rituals that will be repeated in a ceremonial fashion for the duration of
the performance. Students will be placed using a grid formation as in Christanto’s
work, allowing members of the audience to walk into the performance. Several
students to video the performance and take still digital photos as documentation.
Students to download images onto computers and using photoshop and/or iphoto
modify images to produce the 4 best prints of the installation and iMovie
to edit video.
Critical and historical Interpretations
Students study the work of Dadang Christanto, a contemporary Indonesian
installation artist who sees his role as a social activist. Christanto has
an on-going interest in the problematic politics of his home and has had
to become a dissident in his artmaking. Christanto designs his installations
to be graphic and theatrical so that they communicate his message forcefully.
Download a 7-10 program
synopsis for this theme (MS Word 80kb)