C-Team

July 11-14, 2016 Summer Institute

h2f2-SI-h-0306

Current and future art educators, and others interested in using art to teach social justice—joined artists, scholars, and practitioners with expertise in social justice art education, along with well-known guests such as Michael Kimmel—for interactive workshops and special evening events that focus on curricular encounters with Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females–Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein.

When:  July 11 – 14, 2016

Where:  Linda Stein’s studio-gallery in Tribeca at 100 Reade Street, New York, NY 10013

 

Encounters:  Curricular encounters with Stein’s art begin with Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females (H2F2) as a catalyst to connect to personal experiences, reflections, and perspectives. Underlying all encounters is teaching towards understanding the value of diversity (e.g., culture, ethnicity, religion, race, gender, sexuality, and ability) and understanding that everyone is responsible for the well-being of others.

Encounters with H2F2 can be both a source for examining cultural-historical roots of social and environmental degradation, and a catalyst for upstander actions in rethinking community. Several encounters investigate the role of visual culture as a means of communicating and perpetuating cultural values, including the ways in which visual culture affects perceptions of self and the world. Other encounters explore issues of power and privilege and its various forms in visual culture. The encounters are processes to analyze media, advertisements, photographs, alternative media, objects, spaces, places, signs and codes as sources of power, as well as to “decode” and “encode” the symbols that dominate society.

Have Art: Will Travel!, a non-profit corporation, will offer a $1000 annual award to an educator who develops and implements outstanding curricular encounters with H2F2.

The Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females (H2F2) Summer Institute was held at Linda Stein’s studio-gallery in Tribeca, New York, from July 11-14, 2016, for educators to learn how to bring encounters with H2F2 into their teaching sites. Options included professional development credits (CEUs) and Penn State World Campus graduate course credit.

 

 

2016 Summer Institute Schedule

Monday, July 11, 2016: Justice Encounter
  • 12 – 2 PM: Introductions and workshop goals: Social Justice Education
  • 2-2:30 PM: Refreshments & Break
  • 2:30-5:30 PM: Workshop: Justice Encounter
  • 5:30-8 PM: Dinner provided with films in the studio, informal conversation.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016: Environment & Community Encounters
Wednesday, July 13, 2016: Power & Identity Encounters
Thursday, July 14, 2016: H2F2 Curricular Encounters

ARTifact

The Identity Exploration with Cultural Artifacts encounter, with the Spoon to Shell Series, begins with a discussion, while looking at the art, with others whose social class, age, gender, sexuality, and ethnic background differs from one’s own. To join the discussion click here. To interpret a cultural artifact, it is important to look at conditions for its production as they relate to socioeconomic class structures, gender-role expectations, and specific visual codes of the time, as well as how those codes have changed over time. Using Regender (Yee, 2005), read articles that are regendered–about the cultural artifacts–to discern whether and how the meaning has changed. Look again at each work in the Spoon to Shell Series. What does the spoon signify in relation to the shells and text fragments and other items in the box assemblages? The uniformity of the 20 black, wooden, box sculptures brings order and calm to the chaos, fragments, and tensions that are visible from the window of each box. Stein uses spoons and shells in the box sculptures as metaphors for power and vulnerability.

Spoon to Shell 817 2015 spoon, shell and mixed media 11”x2”x14”

Spoon to Shell #817
2015
spoon, shell and mixed media
11”x2”x14”

Click here to see image detail

Click here to interact with Spoon to Shell #817

Hero

An encounter with H2F2, called The Hero Around/Within Us, involves creating a graphic novel/cartoon that incorporates self-narratives of real and/or imagined experiences. Begin by viewing the Eleven Heroes Sculptural Tapestry by Linda Stein and click on the faces of each hero to learn about the Hero. From reading the essays in the 2016 H2F2 book or from your own research on each of the heroes (see links on the Leadership encounter to begin research), and looking at the Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females tapestries, one can learn about the lives and actions of the women, and the context of their lives. Add to, as well as, respond to the interactive prompts overlaid on the digitized tapestries, to explore Stein’s use of feminist pop culture and religious icons such as Wonder Woman, Kannon, and Mononoke—who personify the values of empowerment, strength, justice and protection. In this H2F2 encounter, answer the following questions: What can I do, personally, to confront violence? What experience(s) and interaction(s) have I had that have shaped a decision in my life? Who are my heroes? How can I learn from my hero role models and their values? Further, reflect on people who have demonstrated actions of protection, equality, and justice. Identify people that embody actions (large and small) to help others. Imagine the heroes and icons in Stein’s artwork as animated and conversant life guides, shamans, or protectors. Compose a graphic narrative by any means (drawing, collage, computer) that portrays a problem that needs to be solved, which can be based on social injustice experienced or witnessed. Post your graphic narrative onto your blog or a course blog provided by your teacher. We invite you to post the hyperlink to your graphic narrative in the comment area below by logging in to H2F2 website.

Example:

Heroic Tapestries Ruth Gruber 805 2014

Heroic Tapestries
Ruth Gruber 805
2014
fabric, archival pigment on canvas, leather, metal, zippers
5 ft. sq.

Click here to see image detail

Click here to interact with Heroic Tapestries: Ruth Gruber

Resources

LEADERSHIP

Stein’s tapestries draw attention to fragments of life, using collage as a way to juxtapose, overlap, layer, hide, and reveal relationships. In a close view of the tapestries, for example, what meanings are possible when considering the juxtaposition of calico cotton next to black leather? Both could be fragments from aprons that, when placed together, suggest different kinds of services that women have performed, including domestic labor. Look closely at each element and consider all of the possible meanings. Next, consider how each meaning is developed in relationship to other elements in the tapestry. Then, create a collage honoring a woman who has made courageous decisions toward furthering social justice.

To begin the encounter, watch the 7-minute video on the Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females—Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein.

The ten heroes in the tapestries are:

Hannah Senesh ,  Anne Frank ,  Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft ,  Noor Inayat Khan ,  Nancy Wake ,  Ruth Gruber ,  Gertrud Luckner ,  Zivia Lubetkin ,  Vitka Kempner ,  Nadezhda Popova

Click on each to learn more about these ten heroes!

Ten Heroes 859
Leather, archival pigment on canvas, fabric, metal, zippers, 56 x 61 x 2 inches
(2016 © Linda Stein)

Click here to see image detail

Click here to interact with Heroic Tapestries:Ten Heroes 859

JUSTICE

An encounter with the Anne Frank tapestry called, Welcome Home, begins with reading excerpts from her diary and current news reports concerning groups of people seeking safety in a foreign land. The current news could be juxtaposed with film images from Voyage of the Damned. The historical documentary depicts the incident in 1939 when a ship traveling from Germany to Cuba, full of Jewish refugees seeking asylum and safety, is refused entry to Cuba; and then when they try to land in the United States, in Florida, they’re again refused entry. Forced to return back to Germany, some people jumped overboard. While eventually some refugees were granted asylum in Belgium, France, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, many were not, and subsequently exterminated in Nazi concentration camps. How could the past inform the present, so that people could be welcomed home? Create a collage, which includes news images from the past and present, along with diary entries, that brings a personal perspective to current and historical events about the desire to be welcomed home. Seeking and learning about a diverse range of life narratives prompts an empathetic process of understanding injustice within the complexities of environments and communities.

Lesson Plan Example: Justice Encounter: To Act OR Not To Act

Anne Frank 839
 Anne Frank 839
fabric, archival pigment on canvas, leather, metal, zippers
2015
5 ft. sq.

Click here to see image detail

Click here to interact with Heroic Tapestries: Ann Frank

ENVIRONMENT

Cabinets, Cupboards, Cases and Closets 855
2015
fabric, found objects, metal, wood
9”x3”x9”

The Cabinets, Cupboards, Cases, and Closets sculpture in the H2F2 exhibition are are wood, metal, and mixed media environments that Stein revisions into life stories. They are filled and overflowing with complex life narratives, through interwoven cultural artifacts. These works spark encounters about hiding, leaving things behind, fleeing, diaspora, losing and finding identity, and more. For example, an encounter with one of the Cabinets, Cupboards, Cases, and Closets sculptures might begin by learning about the social, environmental, and health issues regarding elements in the work, next creating a visual map of the connections from and between the elements, followed by illustrating a story of future trajectories at one of the knots of entanglements of people and place.

Click here to interact with Cupboards

COMMUNITY

There is never a single story about any place or people. In this encounter, select one of the Cabinets, Cupboards, Cases, and Closets sculptures to imagine a life story situated in a community of people. With collage, drawing, and painting, create a series of artworks of people in action that includes an element of the selected art in their action. Display the series together and discuss the work with others. Or collaboratively create an interactive story game using Twine, Inklewriter, or Storyboardthat, which are open-source tools for sharing, nonlinear stories, to show the possibility of becoming an upstander. Examples include: Bea the Upstander game by John Rapaccioli & Elissa Kapp (2016) and an interactive story for teachers on why it is important to address LGBT bullying by Kevin Jenkins (2016).

Below is a visualization to start brainstorming with a group of students, or with oneself or another individual.

EMPOWERMENT VISUALIZATION

Relax, find a comfortable position, close your eyes if comfortable doing so as you begin to explore the past, present, and future. Nothing you think about now needs to be shared with anyone else.

  1. FOCUS ON SPECIFIC EVENT:

Focus on a specific disempowering place, image, text, action, or sound that you experience almost everyday. Search your memory for the mundane, your typical everyday way of being to locate a vivid everyday experience that may seem small and inconsequential but in some way instigates or perpetuates stereotypes, misunderstanding, intolerance, oppression, distrust in learning with others about each other. Is there a loss, a displacement, an absence, or did someone or something appear that changed the situation in a way that you did not want changed. Keep searching through your daily experiences starting from today and travel back in time until one place, image, text, action, or sound that you hear or see or experience almost everyday stands out to you as particularly disempowering.

  1. SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE EXPERIENCE

Where are you in this situation?

What is going on around you?

Who else is there?

Are you doing something? What is it?

How are you feeling?

Are others sharing your feelings, or are you alone with them?

What are you feeling in this very specific disempowering experience?

  1. TRANSITION TO MAKING CHANGE

Now re-envision that experience changing everything that made it uncomfortable, belittling, sad, or awful into comfort, strength, a sharing amongst others, even if not in the particular setting, who are benefiting from your vision. See the disempowering experience and transform every inch of its negative reach to an empowered space, an empowered situation. If you were to communicate the transformed event, what would you do? How could you create an experience for others that would both reveal this act of disempowerment and empower others on how to change this form of disempowerment for themselves and others?

  1. PREPARING TO CREATE:

When you start your work where will you begin? Will you begin by searching for some images or information? Will you talk to others? Will you draw what you saw, or your thoughts, or feelings? Reflect and make visual your reflections in some way, whether text, drawing, images, or gathering data.

Return to looking at the selected sculpture and reinterpret the piece from the perspectives gained from the process of this encounter.

Interact with Spoon to Shell #821

Spoon to Shell #821
2015
spoon, shell and mixed media
11”x2”x14”

Click here to see image detail

Click here to interact with Spoon to Shell #821 

ACTIVISM

What if each of Stein’s fierce feminist leaders simultaneously had a prominent seat at the table on the national and world stage? What if all stood up when they were told to sit down? What if all spoke out, when they were told to be quiet? What if…? Just imagine what Wonder Woman would say or do to a victimizer? Change the text-bubbles, as does Stein in her art, to voice upstander concerns.

Noor-Khan-c

Noor Inayat Khan 813
2014
fabric, archival pigment on canvas, leather, metal, zippers
5 ft. sq.

Click here to see image detail

Click here to interact with Heroic Tapestries: Noor Khan