Past Projects
Click images for project description and more images
Wise Men + Women Say:
16 short videos on life lessons
A collaboration between Grant HS Digital Media, Hollywood Senior Center, and Senior Advocates for Generational Equity
Grant HS Digital Media students paired with elders from the Hollywood Senior Center to create short art videos on life lessons. Students used video and audio recordings from interviews facilitated by SAGE, found footage, photographs, and music to to pass on knowledge to future generations.
Videos:
Harvey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovRoN3Gl8xo
Dolores: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccFA6bQubZo
Kae: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nBxcP8YPqE
Howard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcR40iOtchY
Georjean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LR2gcMKNXw
Diana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqmnT7rJiXo
Ernie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NViOAV2FEuU
Jan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iPAe85n1WU
Tom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42qQQ8wk6Kk
Marsha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypkWkrESFqk
David: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgrS0LujZ8g
Frances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8fbURLbBXc
Didi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjfoqg0_h3I
Jean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt1_bmddnvI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmioUBF8kNs
Wonder: Microphotography collage installation
An art installation engaging the wonder and the Grant HS Community Garden
Responding to informational plaques (the kinds found in parks and nature sites), students explored ways in which photography/art installation could be used to share or connect to a feeling of wonder.
Guest artist and educator, Warren Hatch (In One Backyard) shared his photography and video work on insect species from his backyard. Students used only plants or objects from the Grant HS Community Garden as specimans for the project. The 4 part process included 1) using Davinci sketchbooks as catalyst, students sketched and journaled a series of questions related to their speciman 2) They conducted a series of tests related to their questions, these were used to create photographic works 3) Collages were created 4) Questions and fun facts were collected to create plaques for installation in the garden.
The Future:Community Collaboration
How might art be used to envision, collaborate, interact?
In this project, Grant HS students interviewed 3rd grade students at Alameda Elementary School about how they envision themselves in 10 years into the future- in which they will be approximately the same age as the high school interviewers. Digi Media students interpreted interviews and drawings into digital media collages. Similarly, Alameda students interviewed Grant HS students and created drawings of their future goals.
In another version of this project, Grant HS students were assigned to interview community members about their perception of our community. Digi Media students created digital collages about community member's hopes for the community. The collages were printed and posted in the neighborhood.
Joy Fest 2016
A socially engaged art festival and final
How might students imagine joy with others as a component of their education and educational spaces? In this project, students led short workshops on themes of joy and inclusion. Workshops included (see poster) Paniagua Pinata, Nerf Slam Dunk Contest, Treats and Chatting, Catch Me If You Can, Singing+Dancing+Rapping, Mosh 101, Watermelon Eating Contest, Smashing with Anthony and Eric, Sports Center, and many more.
Lost Parks
A site-specific performance an installation piece at the 2013 Chicago Home Theater Festival. (July 2013)
This project took place on the front lawn of a house at a block party in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago, IL. The year prior to this project, Avondale had been sited as a park poor neighborhood, a neighborhood with very few public parks. In my researching of the area, I was inspired by accounts of Olson Park, a beautiful neighborhood public park that had been converted into a parking lot only a few blocks away from the location of the house in which this project took place.
Participants in this project were asked to create miniature parks to give to the neighborhood by installing them. The purpose of this project was to create parks together, give parks to the neighborhood, and also to empathize with the feeling of losing a park. Little instruction was given to participants about how to make the parks to encourage participants to assist one another and create a range of responses.
Teenage Interviews on Love
Photo portraits coupled with interview responses about the subject of love. Teenagers interviewed others about what love is and if the subject had ever been in love before (and what it was like). They chose select quotes.
Spirit Photography: A study in Shutterspeed
Inspired by Victorian era Spirit Photography, students applied new skills in shutter speed and narrative to narrative ghost story photographs within our school. The project was coupled with ghost story telling, light painting, and technical exercises in narrative and shutter speed.
Change History: Historical Photo Collage
After researching and thought on photo journalism coupled with research on Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, students created photo collages from historical images. Students had to incorporate their own image into a historical image to "fix" history into how they would have like to change it.
Co-Creating Spaces of Imagination, Creativity and Narrative
(Summer 2012) These were several art projects created with 4-5 year-old students on the topics of art and outerspace. Please click the image to see the projects we did.
ALTER EGO SELF-PORTRAITS
THIS IS WHAT
I DO: A SLIDE LECTURE
IN THE FORM OF SONG
Hybrid Identity Self Portrait Silhouettes
Using Kara Walker's silhouette installations as a reference, students collaboratively created narrative imagery using hybrid identity self portrait silhouettes. Students created chose symbols to represent the various communities they participate in and various aspects of their identity. These symbols were affixed to detailed figurative silhouette images. Students were then grouped to create narratives using the portraits they created. (12/2012)
Lesson Plan Spread
SPACE:
Superheroes/Alter Egos:
Co-Creating Spaces of Imagination, Creativity and Narrative
(Summer 2012) These were several art projects created with 4-5 year-old students on the topics of art superheroes and alter egos. Please click the image to see the projects we did.
Pirates!
Co-Creating Spaces of Imagination, Creativity and Narrative
(Summer 2012) These were several art projects created with 4-5 year-old students on the topics of art and pirate. Please click the image to see the projects we did.
Twenty Minutes of Wikipedia: a derive for 2012
A project for citydrift/Detroit at Kunsthalle Gallery and various locations in Detroit.
From the internet: citydrift is a meta-event qua group installation/art discourse composed loosely in different measures on Guy Debord’s Situationist concept of the dérive or drift, Jan Hoet’s 1986 project in Ghent, Chambres D’Amis, and Colin DeLand’s playful reconfiguration of art fair paradigms with his “Gramercy Hotel” model.
Applying the concept of the derive to contemporary meandering, I asked participants to spend 20 minutes on Wikipedia. Each participant was asked to click around various pages, collecting sentences from each subject that was researched, then combine the sentences into an informal poem.
A collaboration with Ashley Szczesiak and Elizabeth Orban.
Participants were asked to bring in scraps of paper - prefereably waste paper representing items used, notes taken, flyers of events come and gone. Participants were formed into two groups and given the assignment to try and collaboratively make the largest piece of paper they can using by repurposing the scraps that were brought in. Each group was given written and visual instructions on how to create a large (18in x 24in) piece of paper using a blow-up kiddie pool as a water basin. Groups were then asked to reflect on their experience via writing.
The result was an exercise in collaboration and group organizing and yielded large and beautiful recycled paper, a collage of our shared waste and relationship with paper.
PAPER POTLUCK
POOL PARTY
BEING PRESENT: A reenactment of Marina Abramovich's The Artist is Present with elementary school students
Fifty People Project
A three-part project with Chapman's 1st grade classroom exploring presence, and the self in relation to others.
Part 1: Performance: A re-enactment of Marina Abramovic's The Artist is Present in pairs.
Part 2: Interviewing each other focusing on being present and getting to know one another.
Part 3: Drawing a portrait of the other person including something that was learned about the other person.
Part 4: Introducing the other person on video + Collaborative Drawing.
Chapman Elementary School, Portland OR (Winter 2011)
Telpochcalli Elementary School, Chicago IL (Spring 2012)
A performance piece with video documentation
(Summer 2012)Chicago, IL
How are personal connections made? Can personal connection be constructed or is it circumstance? When and how do unique and special interactions blend to become obsolete or forgettable?
A performance piece in which I committed to meeting one person every day for 50 continuous days. I had a 10+ minute conversation with each new person that became my friend or acquaintance. Each participant was documented saying their name and any other information they wished to say. While initial interactions were free to take whatever form they might, later interactions had to include more vulnerable gestures from myself that progressed from a handshake to a hug, giving out my personal phone number, and divulging a secret.
While over 50 participants were documented, the original goal of the project was 100 people in 100 days. As the project progressed, I no longer felt the need to document my interactions. There are around 30-40 interactions that were not documented.
KARAOKE NIGHT
BREAK-UP ALBUM
IS LOSS THE MEASUREMENT OF LOVE?!
BREAK-UP ART!: A
ONE-NIGHT STAND EXHIBITION
THE DEPARTMENT OF CREATIVE ATHLETICS
