Inspired by the documentary, “Jane: An Abortion Service”, that we watched as a class, Claire is reflecting on the quality of care women received from the Jane Collective, and mourning the loss of that care in the current medical industry, even as we are grateful that abortion, at least in the state of Illinois, is legal.
Odette wrote letters to and from 18 individuals affected by ICE, one letter to her hometown Tijuana, and one letter to an ICE agent. The letters are in Spanish and in English, with a photograph of the immigrant families on the other side, many of whom she interviewed in person. She then sewed the letters into a hanging quilt, that can be read from both sides.
Sakura flips the power dynamics in the relationship between a creepy record producer and the young girls of the popular group AKB48 in the recreation of popular merchandise associated with the Japanese Idol Groups. Her feminist twist shows the world who this man really is, complete with a tiny pair of handcuffs. “Yasushi Akimoto Japanese Record Producer and Lyricist Famous for creating and producing Japan’s top idol groups like AKB48..... Making underage girls sing songs about sex, saving their purity, and taking their school uniform off.... Creep”
Andres chose for this project to research the story behind the Picasso painting, “The Weeping Woman”, and made this short video which draws parallels between the horrors of The Spanish Civil War that Picasso’s subject grieves, and contemporary warfare and genocide.
“I am not just a body, exposed and vulnerable for your PLEASURE. My nudity is not an invitation- it is simply a form, an expression, a human shape. Why must my beauty imply desire? Why must I be reduced to a the parts you choose to see? I refuse to be carved down to your fantasies”
I work with students in New Art City, an online platform for building navigable 3-D virtual worlds. I love this platform because it is accessible, fun, and run by and for artists! Any image or video can be uploaded and turned into a drop-down menu of 3-D shapes that can than be arranged in space in an editing browser. Students can upload found or created 3-D objects, audio that can be spatialized, and links to PDFS. I have them each make their own space, and collaborate on a class space that contains “portals” to their worlds. I have done a lot of work at the school to share this tool with other teachers and secure a department wide liscense to support this work.
In this class students produced a 1-3 minute sound piece and created a music video for it utilizing skills from a series of workshops in stop motion animation, prosthetics and prop building, sewing and green screen. They worked collaboratively to help each other produce the videos, as actors, cinematographers, and prop dressers.