NYU ART+EDUCATION CERTIFICATION

Eric Sihao Lin

Art+Ed Online: Ariana’s Art Challenge

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Student recreation of artworkAs part of her fieldwork at Humanities Prep Academy with teaching mentor Gladys Pasapera, Art + Education graduate student Ariana Elmayan posed the Rijksmuseum’s “Between Art and Quarantine” challenge to her students. The challenge prompts students to recreate a work of art with anything students can find in their homes while self-isolating, which includes objects, people, or pets. 

A student recreates a photo of Stonehenge.

In order to encourage and inspire her students, Ariana created a video that includes tips and tricks, as well as many fun, creative examples of artwork recreations that people have shared. 

Helpful tips include: 

  1. Enlist a pet – get your dogs, cats, bunnies and even ferrets into the mix. Bonus points if you have an extra flexible and acrobatic cat! 
  2. Make a face and strike a pose! If you’re interested in recreating a portrait or a group scene, pay attention to the facial expressions – they’re really what you make it. If you’re reenacting a scene with multiple figures, definitely pay attention to the poses. For a family activity, look for a domestic or dinner scene.
  3. Pay attention to the lighting – try to imagine where the light in the artwork is coming from and orient your composition so a window or lamp is casting similar light into the scene. In bright daylight, windows offer a blue tinted light, while most lamps cast a warm glow.  
  4. Think abstractly! If you’re having trouble recreating an artwork’s appearance, try focusing on shapes over colors.
  5. Why not make it snackable? Edible art counts too! 

At the end of the video, Ariana included Rijksmuseum’s social media accounts and encouraged her students to post and tag their recreations for a chance to be featured. 

Ariana’s students are having fun recreating different historical artworks, and have inspired other classes at Humanities Prep Academy to participate. Students in AP Art History that haven’t had the opportunity to take art also participated, and chose to recreate works of art they have learned about in class. 

A student recreates a sculpture with found materials.

A student recreates an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

A student recreates a painting.

Thanks for all your great work at Humanities Prep Academy and for inspiring your students, Ariana! 

Research in Art + Education Guest: Tomie Arai

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Zoom class with Tomie Arai

Our Spring 2020 Research in Art + Education class welcomed artist and activist Tomie Arai. Tomie shared her experiences using oral history and interviewing for her series, Portraits from Chinatown, and as a co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade with artists Betty Yu and ManSee Kong. In our discussion, Tomie shared examples of working within communities, the importance of sharing stories in native voice and language, and collecting stories that connect the personal and the political such as experiences of gentrification in New York’s Chinatown and the history of immigration in San Francisco. These topics are helpful to consider as students developing strategies to connect with communities for the final capstone project. Given the realities of social distancing as a result of the coronavirus we have had to dramatically alter the way we think about working in and with communities and connecting with people through the research process. One student appreciated how open and honest she was with us as a class, “I enjoyed how transparent Tomie was in regards to navigating the challenges of working with communities. It was really generous of her to share her time, insight, and even images of her upcoming project.” 

Art+Ed Online: Sarah Mallory Makes Rainbows

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Aiden Nolasco (left) shows off his Pokemon drawing and Mona Dillon (right) points to her camel.
Courtesy of Success Academy

Like teachers all over the world, Sarah Mallory, Art + Education graduate student and art teacher at Success Academy Cobble Hill, is finding ways to stay connected to her students while social distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah was recently featured in an article on her teaching experiences during the first week of social distance learning. 

Every week, Sarah sends her students an “art challenge,” encouraging her students to respond to the prompt using craft and every day materials from around the house. Additionally, Sarah has one-on-one FaceTime calls with each of her students to check in on them and their progress on projects. 

Nina Kudryavsky, a Success Academy student, shows off her sculpture.
Courtesy of Success Academy

During a recent week, Sarah posed the question: How might you create a rainbow using things you can find in your home? 

    Sarah posts student projects every week on the Cobble Hill Art Studio Instagram – be sure to check out all the fabulous artwork from students! Thanks for all your great work, Sarah! 

My Journey, My Identity: How do our homelands, personal experiences, and journeys define who we are?

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Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit. 

Starting in 2017, Gehan Habashy, art teacher at The International High School for Health Sciences (IHSHS) and Art + Education alumni, designed and implemented a curriculum unit as part of a long-term exploration of identity with her students. IHSHS works with new immigrant students that come from 30 countries and speak 20 languages. The unit was designed to help students build a deeper understanding of their identities as individuals and to explore the value and  importance of their culture and homeland. Through this exploration, students work on building a sense of identity, in conjunction with self representation.

Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit.

Throughout the unit, Gehan introduced her class to artists that explore themes of identity and self representation, such as Faith Ringgold, Shirin Neshat, and Wendy Ewald. During their exploration, students considered questions such as: Who are we? What forms our identity? What is identity? How can I be proud of who I am and celebrate others? How do our culture and homelands shape our identity? How can our identities help us dispel stereotype? Students created photograph portraits with overlaid poems of their own creation that emphasize how homelands, cultures, and  individual experiences help make our identities unique as individuals, and powerful as a community. 

Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit. Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit. Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit. Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit.

Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit. Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit. Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit. Student Artwork from My Journey, My Identity unit.

Fieldwork: Student Artwork from PS 267

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Barney office wall with student artwork on display.

Our office walls at the Barney Building have been updated with beautiful student artwork! Art + Education Initial Certification graduate student Yuanyuan Xu completed her elementary student teaching this fall at PS 267 and hung artwork created by fifth-grade students. 

Closeup of student artwork.

Closeup of student artwork.

By looking at and discussing the artworks of Shantell Martin, Keith Haring and Wassily Kandinsky, fifth-grade students from PS 267 gained an understanding of pop art and graffiti, and had an exploratory conversation examining the relationship between artistic practices and immediate surroundings, as well as transforming acoustic and invisible sounds into an abstract representation. Special thanks to the students of PS 267 for letting us enjoy their artwork and to Yuanyuan for her great work student teaching at PS 267!

Barney office wall with student artwork on display.

Closeup of student artwork.

Barney office wall with student artwork on display.

Guggenheim Symposium: Teaching Modern and Contemporary Asian Art

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Students and teachers presenting on a stage during a symposium.
Image courtesy of the Guggenheim.

On January 11th, 2020, the Guggenheim hosted a symposium titled Teaching Modern and Contemporary Asian Art. The symposium launched a digital teaching resource that features 27 artists from the Guggenheim’s collection of modern and contemporary Asian art, and provides discussion questions, activity prompts, and historical context for educators in the classroom.

In 2019, Art + Education alum Nick Kozak was invited to be part of the Guggenheim’s Teacher Advisory Council (along with 10 other educators in the city), and helped the museum tailor their resources to better suit the needs of classroom teachers. During the 2020 symposium, Nick was invited to share a unit of study that he crafted using the Guggenheim’s teaching resources. 

During the symposium,  Nick had three students— Nate, Natalia, and Eric— join him on stage to talk about the work they created in response to learning about some of those resources. Nick shared how important it was that his students were involved in the symposium,”I think it is imperative that students get invited to education events like this, since they’re the ones who will be encountering all of this content in the classroom.” 

The Guggenheim’s digital teaching resource includes 27 artists, images and videos of artists and artworks, discussion questions, activity prompts, key terms, and maps. Subjects and themes include community, history, identity, materials and process, narrative, nature, place, and symbols. 

Watch Nick, Nate, Natalia, and Eric’s full symposium presentation here.

Screenshot from the Guggenheim's website, displaying a sample of the featured artists.

Map of Asia, courtesy of the Guggenheim

Stories that make words, words that make stories: What are your L.E.S. stories?

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Grad students from Critical Pedagogy, Artists, and the Public Sphere.

As part of their final project, students in Critical Pedagogy, Artists, and the Public Sphere developed a workshop to hear and collect stories based around the Lower East Side. The workshop focused on people’s stories about the L.E.S. in relation to four words/concepts:  belonging, displacement, territory, and resistance/insistence. These words share an overall theme of gentrification and were chosen based on the students’ discussions of their unease as NYU students taking up neighborhood space in a vastly changing area. Students asked passerby to write their story of displacement or belonging in the L.E.S. on post-it notes to place on a map of the area. The workshop was held in two locations with vastly different interactions: St. Mark’s Place and the Tompkins Square Library. 

Preparation for the workshops: 

Workshop sign that reads: "Stories that make words, words that make stories. What are your L.E.S. stories?

Workshop #1: St. Mark’s PlaceGrad students setting up their table for a workshop outside of St. Mark's. 

Workshop #2: Tompkins Square Library 

Students listening to a community member share their story in the Tompkins Square Library.

Alumni Meredith McDevitt class visit

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Alumni Meredith McDevitt visiting an NYU Art + Ed class.

NYU Art + Education alumni Meredith McDevitt visited students in the Race, Education, and the Politics of Visual Representation course. Meredith is an art teacher at Success Academy in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. 

Alumni Meredith McDevitt visiting an NYU Art + Ed class.

In addition to sharing her experience teaching about race, Meredith shared projects that she has implemented at her school, as well as a resource list including books, videos, and artists she uses and references in the classroom. 

A slide from Meredith McDevitt's presentation to NYU students.

A slide from Meredith McDevitt's presentation to NYU students. A slide from Meredith McDevitt's presentation to NYU students.

Hans Haacke Exhibition tour at New Museum, 2019

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A tour group gathers in the lobby of the New Museum.

NYU Art + Education alumni Peter Tresnan led a tour of the Hans Haacke: All Connected exhibition at the New Museum for Art + Ed alumni and current students. 

“For six decades, Haacke has been a pioneer in kinetic art, environmental art, Conceptual art, and institutional critique. This retrospective brings together more than thirty works from across the artist’s career, focusing in particular on the way he expanded the parameters of his practice to encompass the social, political, and economic structures in which art is produced, circulated, and displayed.”

Exhibition title for Hans Haacke: All Connected exhibition.

This fun and community-centered event was an opportunity for alumni and current students to meet, look at art together, and engage in conversation. 

Alumni Peter Tresnan leading a tour group at the New Museum. Alumni Peter Tresnan leading a tour group at the New Museum. Tour group looking at a Hans Haacke installation at the New Museum.  Three alumni looking at a Hans Haacke installation at the New Museum.

I am / I am not – How do we use art to talk back to stereotypes?

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By Alison Rutsch   Student artwork from I am / I am not project

During her fieldwork experience at Achievement First Middle School in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Alison Rutsch worked with art teacher Ruby Singh and designed a curriculum unit as part of a long-term exploration of identity with 8th graders. The project was designed to explore how stereotypes work and then give students the opportunity to subvert the ways that they and others are often reduced and mischaracterized. Students created a series of prints that replaced all too common stereotypes with complex, empowered images of their identities.

Over the course of this exploration, Alison introduced contemporary artists Kerry James Marshall and Lorna Simpson who use portraiture to challenge stereotypes. Students wrote poems about about their own identities and the expectations that others have about them using an “I am/I am not” structure. Finally, Alison taught a series of printmaking techniques to translate student ideas into a set of paired self portraits– an “I am” and an “I am not” view of themselves and powerful rebuttal to the ways they are perceived and diminished in the eyes of the media and larger society. 

Student work from poem activity titled, "Just because I am..."