Acts of Resistance Fall 2021: Homework for 9/15

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Homework for 9/15

My name is Luis, and I'm a Media Arts major here at NJCU! I've grown up in The Heights for my whole life, and have loved the art of filmmaking for just as long. My dream is to be able to make movies, while I am still figuring out what kind I'd like to make. A genre I love and may not even be able to call a genre, is that of superheroes. The landscape for those films has changed over the years and now those films can take on genres of their own. This is a tricky pick, but director Zack Snyder is someone I find to be an activist.

His latest DC Comics film, Zack Snyder's Justice League, is just made with support for people who have endured serious physical accidents leading to disabilities, specifically with the character of Victor Stone/Cyborg. A star football player, a car accident almost took Vic's life, but he was saved by otherworldly technology. I have known people who got into accidents and believed the result could ruin certain aspects of their lives, like sports or just necessary movement.

The movie inspired me because it showed me how someone can overcome losing a part of themselves. The way Snyder and co. have written Cyborg shows me graceful and moving techniques to humanize someone who has lost everything but found a family in the other superheroes showcased in the film.

Cyborg is half-man/half-machine, but that never took his heart away.

(My digital selfie is in black and white in reference to the color palette of another version of Zack Snyder's Justice League.)

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DUE WEDNESDAY 4/5 *Class in person in VA B07

We will have a guest artist group visiting our classroom. Jin Jung and Duquann Sweeney who are behind We're Here JC will be presenting their interventionist art project to our class. BE ON TIME for class!!!!

READ: Look through and read the website https://www.wereherejc.info

INTERVENTION 2 PERFORMANCE !! MUST BE POSTED on the blog BY 4/5

Take inspiration Chapter 3 of The Art of Activism and from the exhibition catalogue The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Lives edited by Nato Thomson and Gregory Sholette and the career of Kimberly Drew. Choose several specific projects that feel inspirational from these sources. Design and plan an intervention that takes the form of video content or a short performance in public or that will be shared in public. You must plan something that involves you and others in a performance (can be visual, audio/musical, educational, comedic, protest) preferably in public. You must plan and create the video yourself but you can get help from others or work as a team. Think of the intervention as a personal expressions of your own politics or passions. The content can be made as various interventions in public that work as a series or as a single performance that can be repeated with instructions.

Choose an issue(s) that you are passionate about creating advocacy for and addressing to your own friends and family. The performance can be seen as a political art expression that "intervenes" with others lives in some way. Post the video (or series of photographs) to the blog with a 3-5 paragraph explanation of why you chose this content and how the performance can be seen as activist art. Use the readings to help your explanation. Include 2+ quotes from the readings the in your post. Be creative, work hard to connect the readings to your project! READ CLOSELY to help elevate your project. Think about what you are passionate about, the kinds of videos and performances that have stuck out to you, and chose an issue carefully so that passion inspires you to make something powerful. Edit your video and your writing carefully.

Post your project link, video, audio, images

3-5 paragraph project description

2+ quotes

works cited

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DUE WEDNESDAY 3/29 Class is in-person in VA B07 (basement next to auditorium)

READ:

Introduction and Chapter 3, History from The Art of Activism, Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert

3 quotes and short response for each quote

Look through the exhibition catalogue: The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Lives edited by Nato Thomson and Gregory Sholette

A (somewhat glitchy) pdf which can be found here: http://www.gregorysholette.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Interventionists_03_14_041.pdf

YOU MUST HAVE YOUR IDEA FOR INTERVENTION 2 drafted on the blog posted with your quotes from the readings above. These will be shared in class discussion.

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Due WEDNESDAY 3/22 *Class will be on Zoom 9:55am - check announcements on BB or check the blog the day before class for any changes.

SHORT ESSAY

This Is What I Know About Art

In a short essay use the readings in the class thus far to help form an analysis of the book, This Is What I Know About Art, by Kimberly Drew. How does her autobiographical story help illustrate some of the themes and issues we have been discussing? How can authors, historians and curators also be activist? Use some of the other projects and readings we have seen so far to connect to her activism and her journey. What moments in her book felt particularly pivotal and meaningful to you? Share these in your essay. Explain why these where important. What quotes from her writing stuck out to you and why?

Using her story as inspiration, think about a way that you can insert or use activism and art in your own professional aspirations? How can activism become a meaningful part of your own professional journey? Explain this in a few paragraphs in your essay. Be sure to use the readings: Kimberly Drew Book, article about her book, bell hooks, Susan Sontag, and our Art of Activism textbook to help analyze her book and connect to a plan you may have to insert activism into your own life. Cite the quotes (author, page) from the readings in your essay. Edit your work and be sure to include the sources at the bottom of your essay in a short works cited. Use a few images of examples to illustrate your writing.

~700 words

3+ images with captions and 4+ quotes from class readings

Citation + works cited

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HAVE A HAPPY SPRING BREAK!

DUE WEDNESDAY 3/15 *Class on Zoom at 9:55am

See BB for our zoom link (same as previous weeks)

READ: the entire book This is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew

Choose two quotes from the book and write a short response for each quote. Post these to the blog along with a selfie from your Spring Break! Please have the book with you for our zoom class discussion.

Look through Kimberly Drew blog: https://blackcontemporaryart.tumblr.com/

WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWK-fP9t0s&ab_channel=NowThisEntertainment

EXTRA CREDIT 5% (completely optional)

Attend the FUND NJCU rally on Monday 3/13 at 2pm in front of GSUB

Make a protest sign and bring it to the rally. Help save the university from programming cuts and protest to have your voice heard!

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DUE WEDNESDAY 3/1 * Class is IN PERSON in VAB Room B07

INTERVENTION 1: POSTER/INTERACTION/WEARABLE

-due 3/1 (15% of course grade)

*Be sure to review art activism examples in our class readings and watch the videos below to get inspired.

Inspired by our readings from the Art and Activism textbook and the pdf from Signs of Resistance as well as the videos linked below, think about a way that you can insert or use activism and art in your own professional journey. Choose an issue that you have been activated to participate in raising awareness. Think about a community you would like to create the intervention for.

Create a physical poster(s), interactive installation OR a wearable object or outfit that acts as protest art. How can we use signs and wearables to inspire advocacy in others? Use the readings on the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Lives Matter movement to inspire your own protest art piece. As we continue to face this global pandemic, various issues of climate crisis, war, violence etc, address this moment with your own act of protest in the form of a sign/poster/wearable message. Choose an issue(s) that is the most important to you. You must create a physical project and share it in some way with others. Place it in a public place, carry it as a sign of resistance and awareness, put it on your car, draw on the sidewalk, put it outside for others to read, etc. Have a clear message and idea for how it will be seen by others. Test out your strategy.

Take good images of your poster(s) and its place in public and post it on the blog with a brief explanation of the sign, your intentions and your thoughts about signs and protest. Use the readings to help you connect your intervention to the history of protest. Include at least two quotes from the readings. You must include at least one image of your intervention in public.

~400+ words, 2+ quotes (with citation), 2+ images (with captions)

BRING YOUR PROJECTS TO CLASS TO PRESENT IN A SHORT PRESENTATION ~3min.

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DUE WEDNESDAY 2/22 *Class will be on Zoom at 9:55am (see announcements in Blackboard for the Zoom link)

READINGS:

Chapter 2, Process by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert

3 quotes and short response for each quote

ON BLACKBOARD: Siegler "Signs of Resistance" pdf under 'Content' on blackboard

2 quotes and a short reaction to each quote

WATCH:

PBS Behind the Activist: https://www.pbs.org/video/behind-the-activist-feat-rachel-cargle-ijeoma-oluo-dlbpcz/

Byron Hurt's Barack and Curtis http://www.bhurt.com/films/view/barack_and_curtis

Civil rights pioneer Ruby Bridges on race in America https://www.pbs.org/video/race-matters-1610668572/

Mary Church Terrell a Civil Rights Activist and Co-Founder of the NAACP https://www.pbs.org/video/she-was-civil-rights-activist-and-co-founder-naacp-q3ypkj/

LONGER WATCH (watch as much as possible):

PBS documentary on Black Panthers https://www.pbs.org/video/independent-lens-black-panthers-vanguard-revolution-full-episode/

Dolores Huerta https://www.pbs.org/video/dolores-huerta-sgtkxu/

!! POST A PROJECT IDEA ON THE BLOG

Prepare a short description of your idea for the project below (which is due 3/1). Describe the idea(s), the process and how you will physically interact with an audience. Post your idea on the blog with two inspirational quotes from your assigned reading above.

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DUE WEDNESDAY 2/15

WE WILL MEET IN PERSON IN LEMMERMAN GALLERY in Hepburn Hall Room 323 at 9:55am

GALLERY RESPONSE ESSAY *due on the blog 2/15

Exhibition information for Kinfolk by Danielle Scott

This exhibition presents the artist Danielle Scott’s dedication to social commentary and ancestral storytelling. The artist spent over a year visiting plantations in the United States sourcing materials and historical documentation in order to connect to these stories and visualize them in these works. She feels a calling to tell the stories of ancestors, of warriors, of love, of sadness and of resilience. This collection integrates photographs, delicate papers, reprinted documents, fabrics and objects to create layered portraits of the lineage of black families across generations.

Danielle Scott is a cultural explorer, activist and artist that breathes in the history and spirits of HER PEOPLE. Scott uses research to tell the unheard stories, transforming her into the storyteller, the mother, the daughter and the history of her subjects. In past work, Scott has addressed stereotypes and archetypes, systematic racism, and gun control. In her most recent collection, the BERTHher series (2019-2021), her focus was to share the stories of women through a joyful celebration of power and triumph.

This exhibition stems from an exhibition, Ancestral Call, presented by Gallery Aferro from October 7, 2022 to January 21, 2023, and originally curated by Anthony E. Boone and Bryant Small. Special thanks to Gallery Aferro directors and the artists for their collaboration.

Danielle Scott Artist Statement

“An artist has one duty and that is to tell the times.” – Nina Simone

I created this work to allure and to create thought provoking dialect. I want viewers to get absorbed in the work and to feel it as I do. I want the work to be a perfect rendering of emotion and a spiritual tugging of the whole self.

After spending 20 years of my career as an oil painter, my career shifted unexpectedly in 2018 as I walked the streets of one of my ancestral homelands, Cuba. It was my first time in the country, yet as I slept and woke, and walked, and worked, I felt a tug at my core that was both foreign and familiar. The rich art that lined the streets and walls powerfully depicted the story of Cuba’s culture and history, reflected the times and the people, in a way tugged at my soul. The art and I were in communion, my ancestors’ powerful voices whispering to my soul, their stories written into the walls. I was home.

This started my awakening. No single medium alone would ever again be enough to express all that the times were calling me to say. I was a painter, but I put aside my paintbrush. I needed more than paint. I needed paint and paper, texture and color, objects lost and objects found, metal and cotton. I needed to deconstruct and reassemble. I needed to cut and cover and color and crown. I needed to listen and to learn to speak in a thousand mediums to tell the stories that I now heard all around me, everywhere.

This body of work comes from the journey that I’ve taken over the last year, visiting places that reflect pieces of these current times, our history, and my ever-evolving understanding of my own self. Each image called out for me. Some were tucked away in boxes at the Amistad Research center. Some are my own photography, depicting things that resonated deeply with me as I planted my feet on plantation soil.

They spoke to me and so I told their stories through rich assorted papers, free people of color data, written text, actual slave stories, 200-year-old book covers, hours upon hours of research upon research, and jewelry I collected as I traveled through the US and abroad.

This exhibition illuminates that treasure which is hidden to the naked eye. Over the past year, I have been digging and digging for one of our hidden treasures which has always been our ancestry, our lineage, our community, our stories, and ourselves.

ASSIGNMENT:

Please visit the exhibition, Danielle Scott: Kinfolk, and write a response to the work in the exhibition. Be sure to read all of the label information and take images of the work. Choose 2 works that stand out to you. Please give the tile and medium of the works and describe these artworks in detail. Explain the message/meaning you interpreted from visiting the work. Include images of the works in your post. What messages do these works convey to the audience about identity, power, race, gender and social justice? How do these often personal narratives about struggle, injustice, celebration and memorial ask larger questions and raise awareness about race, justice and history? Are these works activist? If so, how? Choose 3 quotes from the readings we have done so far (bell hooks, Susan Sontag, and The Art of Activism textbook) and connect these to the artworks that you chose from the exhibition.

In addition to the written response please create a SELFIE in any style that is inspired by the work in the exhibition and addresses the theme of identity and struggle. Include this in your post with a short description of the image you created.

~800 words, 3 quotes from any of the readings thus far, 2+ images from the gallery exhibition + your selfie

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DUE WEDNESDAY 2/8

*Class will be on Zoom 2/8 at 9:55am (see announcements in Blackboard for the Zoom link)

There is an artist talk by Danielle Scott in Lemmerman Gallery on Thursday 2/9 at 5pm - please attend to help with your essay assignment.

READINGS:

Introduction and Chapter 1, The Art of Activism, Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert

3 quotes and short response for each quote

John Berger, Ways of Seeing Ch7 on BLACKBOARD

2 quotes and short response for each quote

WATCH *episode 1 and 4:

Documentary Ways of Seeing from BBC and John Berger

accompanies the essay you read by John Berger

(4 episodes total)

Please watch:

Ep 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk

Ep 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY

No quotes due just jot down some notes and responses for discussion.

(These are optional)

Ep 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GI8mNU5Sg

Ep 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7wi8jd7aC4

No quotes due just jot down some notes and responses for discussion.

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DUE WEDNESDAY 2/1 +++ WE WILL MEET IN PERSON IN LEMMERMAN GALLERY in Hepburn Hall Room 323 at 9:55am

INTRODUCTION POST due on the blog 2/1

ARTIST + SELF
Find and research an artist whose work you find is a form of activism. Choose one artwork that particularly inspires you. Create a digital selfie (of you) that is inspired in some way by this artist/discovery. Write two paragraphs about yourself, the social issues that you are passionate about, and how you were inspired by the artist you chose. Have fun!

READINGS:

Susan Sontag, excerpt from On Photography

http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/onPhotographyExerpt.shtml

2 quotes and short response

Introduction and Chapter 1, The Art of Activism, Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert

WATCH:

Yoko Ono https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCWr_iDh114&ab_channel=TheArtAssignment

Kate DeCiccio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyNX1bX-6dU&ab_channel=AdobeCreativeCloud

GET THE BOOKS!

The Art of Activism, Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert, OR Books, New York 2021

This is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew, Penguin Workshop, New York 2020

As a PDF:

The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Lives edited by Nato Thomson and Gregory Sholette, MIT Press, Cambridge 2004

Used copies are available - no need to buy or print this book we will use a pdf which can be found here: http://www.gregorysholette.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Interventionists_03_14_041.pdf

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DUE WEDNESDAY 1/25 * Class will be on Zoom 9:55am - 12:35pm

READINGS (3 total):

1- Understanding Patriarchy by bell hooks (on BLACKBOARD)

2- How Memes Are Making Protest Art More Powerful. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-memes-making-protest-art-powerful

3- Memes Are Our Generation's Protest Art. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzxa3/memes-are-our-generations-protest-art

Choose 2 quotes from each reading (6 quotes total for the three readings) and write a short reaction to each quote**

**You do not need to hand-in these quotes. Be sure to have them prepared for class. I will ask students to share quotes and their reactions in class. Have these available in the Zoom class.

WATCH:

Guerrilla Girls – 'You Have to Question What You See' | Artist Interview | TateShots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uKg7hb2yoo

Complain creatively. | The Guerrilla Girls | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i5cEhd6Vt8

GET THE BOOKS!

The Art of Activism, Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert, OR Books, New York 2021

This Is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew, Penguin Workshop, New York 2020

As a PDF:

The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Lives edited by Nato Thomson and Gregory Sholette, MIT Press, Cambridge 2004

Used copies are available - no need to buy or print this book we will use a pdf which can be found here: http://www.gregorysholette.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Interventionists_03_14_041.pdf

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LINK TO SYLLABUS

The course material and discussions can often be provocative and challenging. We must therefore be careful to be respectful of each other and of our viewpoints.

Discussion guidelines We must come to class prepared and ready to discuss the readings. Please keep discussions focused on the readings and class materials and keep examples relevant and appropriate. If you have not done the readings you are not to participate in the discussion.