Designing your final project

A detail from the mural painted on the north wall of El Centro Humanitario.

Please write yourself an assignment prompt of approximately 500 words. Your prompt should address all five of the questions below. It should be sufficiently clear and detailed that you could assign your project to someone else in class, confident that they’d know how to complete it.

1. Briefly describe the artwork you intend to create.

2. What social justice work do you want your art to do? What change does it aim to bring about?

3. To bring about the change you want, who will your artwork need to persuade? What makes you believe your artwork is well suited to persuade that particular audience?

4. What is your plan for completing the work? Be specific and include a timeline (knowing that a complete first draft of the project is due in class next week.)

5. How will you share your work with John and Catherine?

When you’re done, please post your prompt to the “Final Project Proposals” topic on our discussion board. Please follow the instructions there and do not start a topic of your own.

Final Project

On Tuesday, we’ll get started on our final projects for the fall class. Your task? To create a piece of art that is at the same time an act of social justice. That’s a very broadly defined task, so, in class on Tuesday, each of you will write a more specific and detailed version of the assignment for yourself. So, between now and Tuesday, please brainstorm ideas for that more detailed, specific self-assignment.

A few things to bear in mind:

We’ll define “art” broadly here, too. You might decide to write a short story, or to create a painting, or to compose a song; or maybe Sarah will want to make a short video (film is an art form), or Mikaela will want to design a new kind of homeless shelter (architectural drawing is an art form); or Oscar will want to draw up plans for a sustainable urban garden (engineering is an art form, too: a mechanical art). The important thing is that you create something that is BOTH an artistic expression AND a social justice action — like Picasso’s Guernica, or Dunham’s Southland, or Branch’s writings about King, any of the film’s we’ve watched.

With that in mind, you may find it useful to review the definition of social justice that we developed on the first day of class:

Social justice activists struggle together to change systematic forms of oppression and inequality and to create wholly new, freer, more equal ways of living together.

•       Social justice activism isn’t simply charity work; it’s about working together as equals and inclusively to make changes in which the entire community has a stake.

•       Social justice activism is not the struggle against anything that seems unfair or oppressive; it’s a struggle against SYSTEMATIC unfairness or oppression.

•       Social justice activism is not only about reforming what is; it’s about creating something NEW.

On Tuesday, I’ll provide some guidance about how to craft the assignment that you write for yourself. On the following Tuesday, you’ll bring a “first draft” of your project to class to workshop. But for now, let your creative juices flow and come to class with some exciting, imaginative, world-changing ideas for combining art and activism.