In my time as a student, I have been able to complete art projects that promoted consciousness raising of different social justice issues. I will be completing more projects like these in my final semester through my HECUA program. This page will continue to be updated with new projects that I am working on or have completed.
Constructing Sexual Violence
In the spring semester of my junior year, I took a course called Sex and Sexuality in American Society. In this course we picked places to volunteer at that would be part of our study for a research paper. I decided to volunteer at our on campus Women's Resource Center. With this volunteering position, I was able to create my own project or event for the center which my research paper would be focused on.
Wanting to focus on how art could be a part of consciousness raising and create a change for sexual violence and the culture that surrounds it, I decided on this interactive art piece titled "Constructing Sexual Violence". The process of this consisted of tabling in our student center for an hour a day, two days in one week. At the tables I provided various mannequin pieces, some descriptions of the project, and various supplies for people to add to the mannequins, such as markers, fabric, sand paper, feathers, stick on letters and numbers, hot glue, and thumbtacks. When people approached the table, all they were told to do was add anything they wanted that reflected things they had either personally experienced or heard/seen the in media regarding sexual violence. The results for this project were amazing. Many more people added to the pieces than I ever could have expected. After the project was done, the pieces were displayed in a glass case outside of the Women's Resource Center for a few months. My research paper discusses the implications, limitations, and findings further. |
When Society Tells You How to Feel
During the January term of my sophomore year of undergrad, I took a course called Special Topics: Stories, Storytelling and Social Justice. This was the course that gave me the push to have a concentration of Social Change Through the Arts. In the course we learned how stories of different forms (such as poetry, novels, oral traditions, etc.) have been used through the last couple centuries to create social change of different kinds. For our final projects, we were to create a story, of any form, that focused on a social justice issue that we felt strongly about. I chose to create this children's story titled "When Society Tells You How to Feel".
This story is about mental illness and some of the stigmas and reactions that our society puts around it. The experiences in the books are loosely based off of my own experiences growing up with mental illness and the experiences of people around me. The books was created using Powerpoint, since it would have to be presented to the class. I would love to do something with this in the future in a real book form after cleaning the story up a bit.
This project was especially important to me as it represented not just my own experiences, but also of those of people close to me and my loved ones. About a year prior to created this book, the brother of a very close friend of mine passed away from suicide. His whole family has dealt with various mental health problems all of their lives, but he had been dealing with severe depression for quite a while at this time. His friends and peers rarely took him seriously if he tried to talk about it, or they would get uncomfortable. He was a huge influence to the making of this book. I wanted to make it a children's book in the hopes that it is something that will stick with kids instead of the current mental health stigmas. As they grow, they will then be able to fight the stigmas and have better dialogue about mental health without fear of negative repercussions.
This story is about mental illness and some of the stigmas and reactions that our society puts around it. The experiences in the books are loosely based off of my own experiences growing up with mental illness and the experiences of people around me. The books was created using Powerpoint, since it would have to be presented to the class. I would love to do something with this in the future in a real book form after cleaning the story up a bit.
This project was especially important to me as it represented not just my own experiences, but also of those of people close to me and my loved ones. About a year prior to created this book, the brother of a very close friend of mine passed away from suicide. His whole family has dealt with various mental health problems all of their lives, but he had been dealing with severe depression for quite a while at this time. His friends and peers rarely took him seriously if he tried to talk about it, or they would get uncomfortable. He was a huge influence to the making of this book. I wanted to make it a children's book in the hopes that it is something that will stick with kids instead of the current mental health stigmas. As they grow, they will then be able to fight the stigmas and have better dialogue about mental health without fear of negative repercussions.
Pamphlet for Victims of Domestic Violence
Current Projects.
I currently am not working on any projects. Check back for more updates!