Encounters

Social justice curricular encounters with Linda Stein’s art are designed to be encounters with specific works or with a series of works. Each encounter begins with processes to look at, discuss, and experience Stein’s tapestries and sculpture. The processes of encountering Stein’s art may involve making art or other sensory processes as a way to engage with Stein’s art in relation to self situated in current social, political, and environmental contexts. The processes of encountering Stein’s art provide experiences that extend from and then return to Stein’s art. The encountering processes focus on upstander identity, leadership, and social justice. The purpose is to facilitate agency, empowerment, empathy, reflection, and upstander intentions.

Curricular encounters with art are processes to examine cultural-historical roots of social and environmental degradation, and to motivate upstander actions in (re)making community. Several encounters investigate visual culture as a means of communicating and perpetuating cultural values. Encounters explore the ways in which visual culture affects perceptions of self and the world, and constructs power and privilege. 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 de/en/re/code dominate cultural narratives.

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. The following are ways to encounter Linda Stein’s art as catalysts toward social justice education.

Power

Ten Heroes
Ten Heroes 859. Tapestry by Linda Stein. Leather, archival pigment on canvas, fabric, metal, zippers; 56 x 61 x 2 inches; 2016.

OVERVIEW

Power Encounter involves discussion about (dis)(em)power(ment). In this encounter, students will look at artists who are connecting to themes of power and narrative and make art that re-imagines new narratives of everyday heroism.

PURPOSE

Artist Linda Stein creates tapestries and sculptures that incorporate superheroes and fantasy icons that are juxtaposed with real-life female heroes.  In her series entitled Holocaust Heroes Fierce Females, Stein’s intent is to exemplify women’s heroic acts of rescue and protection during the time of the Holocaust. In her series entitled Fluidity of Gender Stein creates wearable, androgynous sculptures that enable viewers to try on new personas or avatars. In this encounter students will be introduced to other artists, who are Stein’s contemporaries, Chitra Ganesh, and Ivan Velez Jr. who also use comics in their artwork.

Given that images transmit a range of social and cultural values that privilege and exclude others, this encounter aims to create the capacity for imagining and envisioning new narratives and new realities that challenge dominant narratives. This encounter also aims to develop personal strategies for understanding cultural dynamics that include the diversities, ambiguities and complexities of power and identity construction that can be applied to communicating and teaching students about such topics in a developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive manner.

LEARNING GOALS

  • Through observation and discussion, students identify, analyze, investigate, and reflect upon issues related to power and heroism in the context of everyday experience.
  • Drawing upon everyday experience, students create, tell, or reveal personal narratives that tell a story of heroism.
  • Through engagement with artists who use comic imagery, students envision their empowered self as an upstander on an everyday basis, in this particular case by finishing the statements: “I am an Upstander for  ___________. Or “I am an Upstander when  ___________.

ACTIVITIES and DISCUSSION:

  1. Empowerment Tapestry Activity (PDF)
  2. Diagram a Superhero Activity (PDF)
  3. Videos and Discussions Activity (PDF)
  4. Self as Superhero Activity (PDF)

RESOURCES:

  1. Toku, M. (2001) What is manga? The influence of pop culture in adolescent art? Art Education, 54, 11-17. http://www.csuchico.edu/~mtoku/vc/Articles/toku/Toku_what%20is%20manga_.html
  2. McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics [the invisible art]. New York : Harper Perennial (View PDF)
  3. Berkowitz, J., & Packer, T. (2001). Heroes in the classroom: Comic books in art education. Art Education, 54(6), 12-18. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3193910?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
View Power Encounter at Stein Studio & Gallery View Comic Power Encounter Lesson Plan

Agency: Creating Interactive Stories on Becoming a Brave Upstander

Agency is a foundational concept of interactivity and the currency of game design. Create an interactive story game of the 4 Bs with the possibility of becoming a brave upstander. Making choices in the story reveals how there is never a single story about any place or people. Create an interactive story game using Twine or Inklewriter, or other open-source apps for creating and sharing nonlinear stories. The stories should include possibilities for becoming a brave upstander.

ACTIVITY OVERVIEW:

      1. Critique the storyboards.
      2. Play the Upstander game, and the Twine and Inklewriter examples.
      3. Storyboard with collages, drawings, or paintings.
      4. Share stories of the 4Bs and brainstorm characters, plots, scenes, and narratives for interactive story games.
      5. Individually or collaboratively create an interactive story.

Definitions of the 4 Bs:
(4Bs coined by Linda Stein. Learn more about the 4Bs from Stein’s Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females Film, 2015)

    • Bully: A person who targets another, often supported by a group, to intimidate (such as with hurtful rumors using social media) or act aggressively toward another with threats or violent actions.
    • Bullied: A person who is the victim of bullying and may suffer depression, social withdrawal, physical injury, addiction, self-harm, and even suicide.
    • Bystander: A person who is knowledgeable about unjust acts, such as bullying, and does nothing to prevent the injustice.
    • Brave Upstander: A brave upstander joins with others, or stands alone, to protect others from violent circumstances in everyday experiences, such as bullying, or actively engages in promoting the wellbeing of others to balance inequalities or oppression.

RESOURCES: 

    • Bea the Upstander game by John Rapaccioli, 2016.

Justice Encounter: To Act OR Not To Act

Hannah Senesh 806 by Linda Stein (2014) 5 ft. sq. leather, metal, canvas, paint, fabric & mixed media
Hannah Senesh 806 by Linda Stein (2014)
5 ft. sq. leather, metal, canvas, paint, fabric & mixed media

GOALS and OBJECTIVES

  • explore issues of social justice and social justice activism as upstander
  • understand why and how people take action to address injustice
  • develop empathy for people whose experiences differ from our own
  • inspire participants (through art) to be upstanders for social justice
  • recognize how one’s life history shapes personal perspectives on upstander behavior and social justice

The Holocaust, slavery, lynchings, and other human rights abuses are not, as we would like to believe, accidents in history. They happened because individuals, groups, and nations made decisions and choices to act or not to act.

REFLECT upon the following questions.

  • How have I been complicit in perpetuating racism, sexism and stereotypes or creating a climate of animosity, xenophobia, or homophobia—(i.e., through jokes, comments, and casual remarks, etc.)?
  • How have I exhibited upstander behavior in either mundane or monumental ways?

MAKE a parallel list of upstander behaviors vs bystander behaviors.

VISUALIZE Social Justice

Envision how we might change our institutions and our psyches…to take seriously the nurturance of consciousness, conscience, compassion, and community.

RESOURCES

  • Curricular Encounters with Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females—Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein @ http://h2f2encounters.cyberhouse.emitto.net/
  • Knight, W. B. (2010). Never again a (K)night with Ben. In A. Arnold, A. Kuo, E. Delacruz & M. Parsons (Eds.), G.L.O.B.A.L.I.Z.A.T.I.O.N, Art, and Education (pp. 126-134). 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.
Download Justice Encounter lesson plan

From Nativist Hysteria to Upstanders

Ruth-Gruber
Ruth Gruber 805. Tapestry by Linda Stein. Leather, archival pigment on canvas, fabric, metal, zippers; 57 x 57¼ x 2 inches; 2015.

VIEW FILMS:

DISCUSS:

    • Kindertransport as upstander acts
    • Photographs, films, and art as upstander acts: “words and images to fight injustice” Ruth Gruber
    • Restitution as upstander acts

RESOURCES:

    • Knight, W. B. (2010). Never again a (K)night with Ben. In A. Arnold, A. Kuo, E. Delacruz & M. Parsons (Eds.), G.L.O.B.A.L.I.Z.A.T.I.O.N, Art, and Education (pp. 126-134). Reston, VA: The National Art Education Association.
    • Miller, D. (2003). Principles of social justice. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
    • Pérez de Miles, A., & Peck, S. (2017). Exhibition as curriculum: Creativity as a human right. Art Education, 70(4), 60-64.
    • Stein, L. (Ed.). (2016). Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females—Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein. Philadelphia, PA: Old City Publishing.
    • Stein, L. (Ed.). (2016). Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females—Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein. Philadelphia, PA: Old City Publishing.
Download From Nativist Hysteria to Upstanders

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

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