series

Blades

During an interview with Elie Wiesel, he was asked: “What do you think is the real purpose for us being on this planet?” His answer: “ You are here because you have to fight certain battles....” Pondering the phrase “to fight certain battles” I think of my art and why, over the last decade (mostly in the 1990s), I have been using the Machete Blade as metaphor and symbol.

There are many personal reasons, but the cultural ones keep attracting my attention. The violence that we see daily on our own “civilized” soil (most recently the Amadou Diallo murder, the Columbine massacre, the stock trader Mark O. Barton’s shooting rampage in Atlanta) presses on our individual psyches and presents a conundrum with no easy solution. I find that as an artist, I must give form to this puzzle.

In my battle with the Machete Blade, I confront its hard, cold, sharp steel and dull it, curve it, bend it to my will. I demand that it become accessible, intimate, knowable. My artistic process is arduous but I am determined: I tame the Blade. I make it harmless. I control it. I deprive it of its destructive potential and turn it into something soft and pliable, residing in a tactile, even playful environment.

I see the Machete Blade as an icon for our age of aggression. Ignore it at our peril. Instead of being repelled by it and denying its presence, we must address it: politically, socially, economically and, yes, artistically.

By incorporating the Blade into art, I give visual voice to its symbolic threat in our daily lives. By accepting it into a sculptural world of metal, bone, wood, stone and fiber, I deconstruct my own fears, and potentially those of my viewer, and psychically address the intensity of violence in our times.

And, mysteriously, on a psychic level deep within, my battle with Blade gives me strength and hope for a less violent future.

––Linda Stein, 2003

 

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Sexism

Sexism: Exploring, Exploding, Expanding Expressions of Masculinities and Femininities

Sexism, the stereotyping and discrimination based on gender, is confronted in Linda Stein’s series SEXISM. Stories of women being told to put their legs together, to take up less space, and their defiant response to such narrow inscriptions of femininity are the content for the video and tapestry, Legs Together and Apart. 925 (2018). The top image on this page, titled “Gloria Steinem 1037,” is a tapestry created by Linda Stein in 2020, which is 64″x72″x3″.

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(en)COUNTERS with SEXISM

Tango

Tango is “an exchange of movement and touch, about a transnational negotiation of desire, of gender roles and communication” (Manning, 2006, p. x). As Horacio Ferrer writes, “before being an artistic expression, before tango came to light as such . . . tango was a certain attitude, a way of life adopted by those of diverse cultures” (1995, p. 11). Linda Stein asks: “In dancing tango does a women give and a man get?” Watch the 9-minute video of Stein discussing her tapestry in the sexism series titled “Loreen Arbus Says Tango is Egalitarian 974.”

Extinguish Gaslighting

Gaslighting is an abusive process of psychological manipulating a person into doubting self-worth, sensory knowing, and perceptions (Jackson, 2011). Once aware of gaslighting, you can extinguish its harmful psychological impact, although it is much more difficult to change the gaslighter. Artists, such as Linda Stein, in her sexism series, help us recognize gaslighting. Once recognized there are steps to extinguish. Begin by looking for gaslighting phrases in the tapestries of Stein’s sexism series.

Data Visualization Art

Zoom in on Linda Stein’s tapestry in the Sexism series titled, November 6, 2015, New York Times 865

What is the data? How is it presented in the tapestry? What is conveyed? When you look at the art section of the NYTimes, do you find artists promoted who share similar life experiences to you?

Data visualization art, documentation, methodology, and activism protect individuals from harassment while producing evidence of the massive scale of a problem such as is revealed in the hashtag movements of TimesUp, and MeToo, and the collection of signatures such as with the Not Surprised letter. Feminist theories and practices that have moved away from monolithic notions of women, engage difference by focusing on context-specific positionings of women in relation to other identities. Digital dust (Bernardi, 2018), webscraping, and reverse-engineer strategies can be used to gather data about issues important to you. 

Legs Apart

View the video Legs Together and Apart 925 Interview. Consider what gender expectations you have experienced. Draw or paint about your memory of gender expectations and how you navigated the expectations that seemed restrictive to your identity. Then look closely at Legs Together and Apart 925 and discuss the work in relation to how gender expectations are perpetuated and challenged.

Cosmetics

content

Double Standards

Gender is indeed complicated. It also is beautiful and inherently fluid. The ability to express gender identity, free from oppressive double standards imposed by unfair “rules” or “principles” on certain people, is paramount to thriving in a democracy. Double standards, or unjust application of different sets of principles for similar situations are seen, for example, in unfair expectations of behaviors deemed acceptable for men but not for women. Unequal treatment often results from biases, leading to unfair judgments, discrimination, and sexism. Justification for the double standard is missing, and when justification is provided, it is typically inappropriate. What does it mean to experience a “double standard,” especially a gendered one? This lesson deconstructs double standards students may have been a victim of or witnessed in their experience through open and honest conversation and artmaking in a safe space.

Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females

Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females — Tapestries and Sculpture by Linda Stein (H2F2)

The sculpture for H2F2 includes Heroic Tapestries, Spoon to Shell Sculptures, and a Protector Sculpture as well as a 7-min film and book. The exhibition represents different aspects of bravery during the time of the Holocaust: Jew and non-Jew, child and adult, World War II military fighter and ghetto/concentration camp smuggler, record keeper and saboteur. Together they represent the many types of female heroism, with war battle gear and without, during the years of the Holocaust. For her Spoon to Shell sculpture, the artist blended spoon and shell into an amalgam of materials, addressing sexual abuse. Protector includes a Wonder Woman shadow and becomes a symbol for the brave defender.

Click here to see the art in this series.

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

ENCOUNTERS with H2F2

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 well-being of others to balance inequalities or oppression. The upstander curricular encounters with H2F2 are catalysts for building empathy and learning how to be an upstander. --Learn more

Upstander Encounters with H2F2: 

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Power

Power encounters with H2F2 involve discussion about (dis)(em)power(ment). In Linda Stein's H2F2 tapestries and sculpture, she incorporates superheroes and fantasy icons that are juxtaposed with real-life female heroes. Stein's intent is to exemplify women’s heroic acts of rescue and protection during the time of the Holocaust. The power encounters also introduce other artists, Chitra Ganesh, and Ivan Velez Jr., who also use comics in their artwork.-- Learn more

Power Encounters with H2F2: 

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Hero

Create a graphic novel/cartoon of the Hero Around/Within Us that incorporates self-narratives of real and/or imagined experiences. 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. -- Learn more

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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.

Justice Encounters with H2F2: 

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ARTifact

The ARTifact encounter, with the Spoon to Shell Series in the H2F2 exhibition, 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. --Learn more

ARTifact Encounters with H2F2: 

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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: 

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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: 

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Displacement from Home

Displacement from Home: What to Leave, What to Take —
Cabinets, Cupboards, Cases and Closets

Responding to the issue of migration, which has defined the 20th and 21st centuries with prolonged global flight on a massive scale, Displacement is a natural progression of Stein’s artistic projects since 9/11, in which she focused on themes of protection and victimization, power and vulnerability. Stein responds visually and viscerally with work that echoes heartbreak and hope. Anxiety and affirmation can exist simultaneously or separately: these sculptures contain metaphoric fragments left in the flight from a threatened household, and/or remnants which have been carefully, methodically, and patiently re-contextualized into new surroundings: the safe home. These varied items, significant and quotidian, adored and abandoned, are recalled as moments from daily life: neighborhood, culture – identity. Within each sculpture, there is a paradoxical combination of menace and serenity. One shelf or drawer holds haunting reminders of life, materials worn and rusted or brand new, lying around in unexpected couplings after one might have been forced to rush out the door.

Click here to see the art in this series: http://www.lindastein.com/series/displacement/

Click here for a 5-min video in which the artist discusses her Displacement series.

ENCOUNTERS with Displacement from Home

Narrative

Art teachers can guide students to investigate stories that are conveyed through visual culture, especially stories that are repeated over and over again in a culture. 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. Return to looking at the selected sculpture and reinterpret the piece from the perspectives gained from the process of this encounter. 

Community

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). --Learn more

Community Encounter with DC4: 

Displacement

The sculptures in Displacement from Home contain metaphoric fragments left in the flight from a threatened household, and/or remnants which have been carefully, methodically, and patiently re-contextualized into new surroundings: the safe home. These sculptures explore the state of being displaced with the sensibility of interconnectivity, accessibility, resistance.

Displacement Encounter with DC4:

 

Reflections & Examples:

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