Exhibitions

Conditions for Learning, Summer 2018

July 20, 2018 by Eric Sihao Lin Leave a Comment

Conditions for Learning, Summer 2018

Taking inspiration from the ways that institutional chairs relegate the body to particular poses and postures for learning, the Final Projects exhibition this year focused on several interrelated themes focused on the motivations, choices, and socialized expectations for learners and teachers alike. In determining the title for this year’s exhibition, students took their cues from the physical design and function of educational architecture—specifically classroom chairs—and the ways that bodies are literally and physically constrained to perform in particular ways in schools and classrooms.

Conditions for Learning poster

In each project, students explored the ways that leaners (and facilitators) could move beyond the constraints of specific learning experiences and environments, whether exploring the possibilities of teaching for artistic behavior (TAB), critiquing the philosophy and protocols of a no excuses charter school environment, creating a socially engaged makerspace, better understanding why high school students attend school and feel motivated to learn every day, or comparing notions of success in two different global education contexts.

lizatorrence.weebly.com/making-for-change

Conditions for Learning exhibition Students and Jessica Hamlin at Conditions for Learning exhibition

Impossible House, Summer 2017

August 9, 2017 by Eric Sihao Lin Leave a Comment

Impossible House, Summer 2017

Impossible House derives its title from one of the works within it, a participatory installation that invites the audience to reflect on systemic privilege and social structures that can empower and oppress, specifically in relation to education and teaching. Driven by the students’ immediate concerns and investigations around their own education and their place as artists and educators going forward, a considerable amount of work in the exhibition grapples questions of privilege and equity, voice and representation. The individual pieces are propelled by an awareness of each student’s place within society and the education system, as well as the desire to examine or reflect upon ways to transcend the bureaucracies and challenges involved in navigating these systems.

Impossible House poster

Using academic and social research methodologies inspired by the work of contemporary artists, students investigated individual questions through collaborative gestures with students, conversations with family and friends, the creation of participatory makerspaces, generating collections and accumulations of objects and texts, and a variety of other modes of visual storytelling. Embedded in each work is an awareness of the contradictions within the politics of representation and the responsibilities of speaking for and with others.

Ultimately each work represents the desire for art to be transformative—transforming the artist as they explore unfamiliar perspectives and investigate new ways of thinking and making, impacting the viewer as they navigate unconventional art and research practices, and perhaps even shifting the larger social landscape to challenge and inspire our work as artists, educators, and citizens.

Name of students in the exhibition

Impossible House exhibition Students at Impossible House exhibition

Spring 2016 Exhibition: Praxis

June 3, 2016 by Eric Sihao Lin

Praxis describes the reciprocity between reflection and action; a space of possibility and of risk; A space where we learn by doing and act by thinking. The exhibition, Praxis represents the work of 9 artist educators who have each posed a question about the realities and complexities of contemporary education. Each seeks answers through engaging with a diverse range of methodologies including reading theory, crafting surveys, conducting interviews, pursuing conversations, and paying close attention how we learn and communicate, in both formal and informal learning environments.

Seating area from the Praxis exhibition.

Artwork from the Praxis exhibition. Installation at the Praxis Exhibition. Praxis exhibition opening reception. Opening reception for the Praxis exhibition.

Spring 2015 Exhibition: Interrobang

November 6, 2015 by Eric Sihao Lin

Interrogation is at the heart of our practice as educators and as artists. It exists between us and our colleagues, our students, and our peers. The eighteen artists in this exhibition are connected through their dual impulses toward action and interrogation. The exhibition title, Interrobang, embodies the interconnectedness of these two impulses around which the work coalesces.

Interrobang exhibition.

Graduate students at the Interrobang exhibition.

Group photo of graduate students at the Interrobang exhibition.

For more information, visit the Interrobang Blog

Final Projects, Spring 2014 – Counter / Current

June 1, 2014 by Eric Sihao Lin

The work in Counter/Current celebrates the dynamic role that artist educators can play at the crucial intersection of inquiry and creativity. Art that compels us to think is like a good teacher who opens up the world and encourages us to be intrepid explorers, critical thinkers, and emboldened meaning makers. The title Counter/Current also suggests the ability to expose new or hidden truths, to present untold stories or histories, and to debunk long-standing beliefs. The twelve artist educators in this exhibition were challenged to conceive of art making as a form of research that empowers viewers to find new meaning about the world around them. Each artist chose a question drawn directly from his/her classroom experience or personal history, and using this question as a starting point, selected a method of investigation that would inform their art-making process.

Final Projects, Spring 2014 – Counter / Current

Final project installed in the gallery — Final Projects, Spring 2014 – Counter / Current

Self-portrait of a student, using words and phrases such as "No Child Left Behind." — Final Projects, Spring 2014 – Counter / Current

More images are available at The Commons Gallery Blog.

Final Projects, Spring 2013 – Me You Us Them

May 15, 2013 by Eric Sihao Lin

The fourteen artists in Me You Us Them are individually distinct – in personal history, in concerns, in background, in representation, and in their material choices. They are the Me, yet the works they have produced for the exhibition telescope through the You Us Them by first offering the viewer an important opportunity to question and understand the human experience (the You). Addressing issues such as identity, perception, education, and technology, each one of the works springs from the artists’ commitment to critical pedagogy. While each artist gives voice and shape to a specific concern of their own, the objects and ephemera included in the exhibition do not rest in personal narrative—each work seeks to engage and unify certain universalities of experience (the We). Most important, these objects are not passive—they ask us each to move beyond our personal concerns and those of our immediate communities, and encourage us to shift our gaze outward to actively locate our experiences in the context of those around us, both known and unknown (the Them).

What is evident in Me You Us Them is an engaged process of inquiry, rather than a didactic or dogmatic point of view. In creating an environment and exhibition that is not only open to discourse but begs for it, these women demonstrate that they are teachers who are artists and artists who are teachers. The relationship is not binary, it is unified.

ME YOU US THEM Catalogue [Link]

Final Project Exhibition, 'Me You Us Them', Spring 2013 — Final Project Exhibition, ‘Me You Us Them’, Spring 2013

More images are available at The Commons Gallery Blog.

Exhibitions

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