Fluidity of Gender

The Fluidity of Gender

The Fluidity of Gender: Sculpture by Linda Stein (FoG)

The FoG exhibition explores the continuum between the binaries of masculinity and femininity, while inspiring the compassion, empathy and bravery it takes to become an upstander rather than a bystander. Have Art Will Travel! (HAWT) asks people to re-invent and visualize bravery for themselves, to look at the armor they wear, the safety they seek. The artist says, “with my androgynous forms, I invite the viewer to seek out diversity in unpredictable ways, to ‘try on’ new personal avatars and self-definitions, knowing that every new experience changes the brain’s structure, and inspires each of us to a more authentic self.”

Click here to see the art in this series.

Click here to see a recording of Linda Stein's webinar about this series.

ENCOUNTERS with FoG

Body

In the Body encounters with The Fluidity of Gender: Sculpture by Linda Stein (FoG), the sculptures are the launch pads to explore vulnerability and protection. One approach is to collaboratively create Body Sculpture Narratives that incorporate sound and light interactivity as well as accompanying voice narratives. This encounter facilitates art creation to explore one’s own experiences of vulnerability and protection. Read more ...

Body Encounter with FoG: 

Learn more

Identity

The Identity encounter with The Fluidity of Gender: Sculpture by Linda Stein begins with a discussion in a circle and asks the participants to write three words that define themselves or how they would like to be known. Follow this prompt with distributing Black Lives Matter ribbons or post-its that they might wear, and ask what matters to them that others should consider for the good of all. What should matter to the society at large? The facilitator then invites participants in the circle to introduce themselves by stating their name, which can be a name that they wish to use for this session based on their values. 

Next, the facilitator asks each participant to use a gender identity concept or experience to write a Find Card. Three resources for terminology are linked here: 1 & 2 & 3 global. A Find Card begins with a directive or prompt to find something in an exhibition. The find prompt is followed by a question. Participants visiting the exhibition create the Find Cards rather than the educator. Read more ...

Identity Encounter with FoG: 

Learn more

Body

A Collaborative, Interactive Sound/Light Sculptural Story Wall:
BODY SCULPTURE NARRATIVES through Linda Stein’s The Fluidity of Gender

Adaptable for MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL

Overview

In this encounter, students, using The Fluidity of Gender: Sculpture by Linda Stein (FoG) as a departure point to explore identity and protection through the creation of a body sculpture and incorporate sound and light interactivity as well as an accompanying voice narrative.This encounter provides a way to visually represent an answer to the question, “What story do I want to share about protection?

Central Focus

This encounter captures the universal experience of all people who have used their own “armor” to hide something or to protect themselves. Sometimes the protection may only a façade used to survive and get ahead; sometimes it may be a cover used to hide pain and resentment at being treated unfairly.

Through making their own body sculpture and telling their own story, students will have the opportunity to define aspects of their identities to highlight as well as aspects of their identity to conceal. Sharing their body sculpture provides a way for students to express themselves in their own way as well as a way to counter the labels or stereotypes others may have placed on them.

STE(ARTS)M learning is incorporated into empowering, social justice themes. STEM learning tends to foster left-brain convergent thinking – one best answer. The Arts disciplines tend to foster right-brain divergent thinking – many ‘right’ answers. In this lesson we combine these ways of thinking.

Learning Goals

  1. Students will learn about artist Linda Stein’s art and her exhibition The Fluidity of Gender
  2. Students will apply the idea of protection to the self and interpret aspects of their complex identities– what they want to present to others and what aspects they want to conceal. 2A. Each Student or in Pairs with create a Visual Collaged Reference Board for Brainstorming-including cut outs of favorite super heroes, favorite song lyrics they listened to during moments when then needed to feel protected or song lyrics that helped motivate them to protect/stand up for themselves, brave role models, pics of people that are important in their life- to help validate their emotions.
  3. Students will create visual symbols that represent aspects of their self with or without text.
  4. Students will create a body sculpture by casting a part of their own body.
  5. Students will create and record their own sounds, a series of short 10 sec sounds/noise/body movement choosing either a) what it sounds like when you have to protect yourself (like an alarm/ fast heartbeat/intensifying breathing) or b) what it sounds like when you are unable to protect yourself or someone you care about- These sounds can be layered into a final narrative in which students tell their own story by recording it, editing it, and transferring it to be used as an interactive part of their artwork as a touch point to animate sound.
  6. Students will learn about interactivity and the role of sound and light in enhancing experiences with art through discussion and visual examples.
  7. Students will learn basic circuitry and conductivity using LED lights and tiny lily microprocessors as well as touchboard for incorporating sound to their artwork.

Mode of Assessment and Communicating Feedback

Students will keep a Journal that will allow facilitators and students to read and write comments to journals/ start additional written conversations to help validate the students authentic and honest aspects of any personal narratives they are willing to share/ bring to this project– each worksheet / art work viewed/ discussed will be glued into the journals

Materials for body sculpture making, including (but not limited to):

  • Journal
  • packing tape (lots),
  • vinyl adhesive (assorted colors) printer shops usually have scraps to give,
  • student-generated text, images, and symbols,
  • scissors and/or exacto knives
  • bare conductive touchboard: https://www.bareconductive.com/shop/touch-board/
  • twisty wire
  • coin cell batteries and holders
  • LED lights
  • switches
  • tiny lilies for light function available at https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10899
  • Speakers
  • USB Plug (for connecting touchboard to an electrical outlet)
View “Body Sculpture Narrative” lesson plan

Civic Engagement

Protector 841 with Wonder Woman shadow. Artist: Linda Stein. Leather, metal, mixed-media; 78 x 56
Protector 841 with Wonder Woman shadow. Artist: Linda Stein. Leather, metal, mixed-media; 78 x 56

Find Cards is a differential learning and assessment strategy that Keifer-Boyd (2014, 2013) developed in the 1970s for teaching mixed age groups from five-year-olds to elders in art galleries. When participants create Find Cards, facilitators discern what learners find important. Also, in composing a question, reflection on what is learned integrates assessment with learning.

FIND CARD ACTIVITY: Partner with another (someone you don’t know in the group). Spend 10-15 minutes together looking at the exhibition and writing a “Find Card.” When finished, place your card with the other cards. Select another card together and find a work that the card prompt directs attention. With your partner, discuss the question posed on the Find Card and other interpretations or knowledge you have about the work. A Find Card begins with a directive or clue of something to find in an exhibition and includes a question. For example:

FIND CARD EXAMPLES:

  • Find an artwork that is about a civic action. What are the challenges of the civic action conveyed in the work?
  • Find an artwork about power and vulnerability. How does the work convey these ideas and with what impact?
  • Find a situation of diversity, difference, exclusion or inclusivity in one of the artworks. Can you relate to the situation? Have you ever felt pressure to exclude someone? What happened?
  • Find an artwork that makes you feel angry. Why do you think it made you feel this way?
  • Find an artwork that makes you feel empowered. Why does it make you feel this way? Do you think others would feel empowered by this too?

RESOURCES:

  • Keifer-Boyd, K., & Kraft, M. L. (2014). IDEA<—>Empowerment through difference <—>Find Card strategies. In S. Malley (Ed.), 2013 VSA Intersections: Arts and Special Education Exemplary Programs and Approaches (pp. 147-158). Washington, DC: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
  • Kraft, M., & Keifer-Boyd, K. (2013). Including Difference: A communitarian approach to art education in the Least Restrictive Environment. Reston, VA: The National Art Education Association.
  • Stein, L. (Ed.), 2016. Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females—Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein. Philadelphia, PA: Old City Publishing.

Voice recording of “Civic Engagement” Find Card Activity on July 12, 2016:

 

Download “H2F2 Civic Art Education: Taking the Challenge of Change” Find Card Activity

9-11 Memorial Encounter

Protector 841 with Wonder Woman shadow. Artist: Linda Stein. Leather, metal, mixed-media; 78 x 56
Protector 841 with Wonder Woman shadow. Artist: Linda Stein. Leather, metal, mixed-media; 78 x 56

Running Away/Against Biopolitical Tattooing

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on New York City left an indelible mark on the art of Linda Stein. Desperate to get away from the raging flames, black smoke, suffocating dust, and cancerous debris, New Yorkers frantically ran for cover during the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers. Over 3000 people lost their lives that day. Stein recalls her experience of running during 9/11. It was during this time that the notion of and the “need for protection” came to the foreground and began to imbue her most recent body of work (Peck, 2016).

ACTIVITY OVERVIEW: Visit the 9/11 Memorial. 2. Create a visual essay. A visual essay can be composed of one or more images. 3. Share image with colleagues and use your visual essay(s) in subsequent Stein Institute workshops throughout the week.

PROCESS: Artistic responses to 9/11 are diverse. The images range from introspective reflections to abstract images to horrific visual representations of the 9/11 events. For this encounter, we will be visit the 9/11 Memorial. Using your camera, smart phone, or sketch pad, capture images, sounds, and sensations of the museum outdoor space, the people, the memorial, the gift shop, and/or the surrounding city space. Will your work be an introspective reflection (image and text or text only), a critique, an abstract photo or image, a “realistic” rendering, or collage?

What are some of the topics or visual representations associated with the 9/11 events that interest you and why? The questions below are meant to guide your reflection. Feel free to create your own critical question(s), reflections, and images based on your impressions of our field trip to the 9/11 Memorial and conversations surrounding Stein’s Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females.

CENSORSHIP: Where in the 9/11 Museum (if at all) are the images and narratives of the people running of or jumping off the towers (see Richard Drew)? Why did the Pentagon censor images of US soldiers’ coffins returning from Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, following 9/11?

ETHICS: What are the ethics involved in maintaining a museum shop that sells memorabilia (or trinkets) of the most devastating terrorist act in the history of the U.S.? Whether positive or negative, reflect on the issue, make your case, and support with images and discussion. WHY do we need a 9/11 memorial? Who benefits? Why is a 9/11importnat to families that lost loved ones, New Yorkers, and the world?

SELFIE: Take a Selfie at the 9/11 Museum outdoor space, the museum/memorial, the gift shop, and/or the surrounding city space. What do you want to communicate with this image?

CURRICULUM & PEDAGOGY: The purpose of the curricular encounters with the art exhibition Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females—Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein (H2F2) is to (re)imagine what global citizenship can be, and to highlight the role of art and education toward social justice. Take photos or images that (re)imagine global citizenship as social justice.

RESOURCES:

  • Agamben, G. (2008, June). No to biopolitical tattooing (Trans. S. J. Murray).
  • Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 5(2), 201-202; Danto, A. (2005). 9/11 Art as a gloss on
  • Wittgenstein. ArtNet. Peck, S. (2016). Affect: Interview with Linda Stein [Unpublished]. New York, NY.
Download 911 Memorial Encounter in PDF

Identity

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FLUIDITY OF GENDER: SCULPTURE BY LINDA STEIN

To begin, sit in a circle and ask the participants to write three words that define themselves or how they would like to be known. Follow this prompt with distributing Black Lives Matter ribbons or post-its that they might wear, and ask what matters to them that others should consider for the good of all. What should matter to the society at large?

Next, the facilitator invites participants in the circle to introduce themselves by stating their name, which can be a name that they wish to use for this session, and to let all in the group know their preferred pronoun. I share a story in which one of my sons said to his younger brother that everyone knows the name our parents gave us reflect our parents’ values. In this session, they can name themselves based on their values. Regarding pronouns, provide examples and clarify some terms that will be helpful in discussing the art in the exhibition. [Linked here is an article on the NYC Commission on Human Rights protecting an individual’s right to a preferred name and pronoun.]

Ask that they use a gender identity concept or experience to write a Find Card. Three resources for terminology are linked here: 1 & 2 & 3 global. A Find Card begins with a directive or prompt to find something in an exhibition. The find prompt is followed by a question. Participants visiting the exhibition create the Find Cards rather than the educator.

As facilitator, introduce the process and provide a handout with the process outlined and with examples of Find Cards (see pdf below for example). The facilitator can either join a team and participate, or circulate to hear some of the conversation among each team.

Importantly, during the second half of the Fluidity of Gender workshop, the facilitator leads the full group discussion by asking each team to take the full group to the work they selected, listen closely, affirm the value of their perspectives, contribute information about the art and artist, and raise questions to the full group from what the team brought to attention. Then ask the authors of the Find Card to discuss what work they had in mind in writing their Find Card and why they posed the question that they did.

Resources

Gender Bias Bingo Learning Project

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “we need to deconstruct the way we have constructed masculinity” (April 5, 2017).

Keifer-Boyd, K. (2010). Visual culture and gender constructions. The International Journal of Arts Education, 8(1), 1-44 (In English 1-24, & Chinese 25-44] ISSN 1728-175X. Posted online with permission of the IJAE editors.

Kimmel, M. (2015). Why gender equality is good for everyone — men included. [TedTalk, 15:58 min.]

Killerman, S. (2014). Breaking through the Binary: Gender explained using continuums.

Regender.com

SafeZone Project [Activities focused on Intersectionality such as Identity Signs.] Privilege for Sale(+) (Gender ID Focused Ed).

Trans*Form Education is a website created by Kevin Jenkins (2017) that includes reading Lists, resources, videos, and information about Trans Topics & Trans*Affirming Environments.

Trans Ally Resources by Adetty Pérez de Miles and Kevin Jenkins (2017)

How You Can Help to Protect Trans Kids Right Now by Katie Dupere (Feb. 23, 2017)

Schools in Transition: A Guide for Supporting Transgender Students in K-12 Schools (2015)

Teaching Beyond the Gender Binary in the University Classroom by Brielle Harbin (2016)

Trans 101: Gender Diversity Crash Course by Ygender (2017)

Encounters with The Fluidity of Gender: Sculpture by Linda Stein

Find Card activity

fluidityofgender