Author: Amy Stoker

Categories
Community Programs

First Street Green

Last year I attended the Imagining America Conference that was held at New York University over the summer. Much of the conference was divided into breakout sessions of your choosing, and I visited First Street Green. First Street Park is a public park on the Lower East Side located at 33 East 1st Street. This park has been morphed from a neglected space into a place for community engagement through programs that include contemporary artists, architects, designers, and community groups. These events take place from May 1st-Oct 1st each year. First Street Green not only curates programs for the space, but also allows people in the community to suggest ideas and host events.

The first event for this year is on May 4 and is in conjunction with the New Museum’s Idea City Festival. Drawing from this year’s theme, Untapped Capital, First Street Green will hold exhibits, workshops, and screenings from 12pm-9pm at the park. For other events throughout the summer and into the fall, check out the calendar.

This is a really awesome new community engagement program through the arts that is just at the start of what I’m sure will be a long and successful journey. I’m really excited to see how this space transforms in the future.

Categories
Media Projects Resources

JR & the Inside Out Project

The French artist known as JR works relatively anonymous. After finding a camera in the Paris Metro, he began to study street art around Europe. Before winning a Ted Prize in 2011, JR created projects in Paris, Shanghai, Spain, Los Angeles.

The most interesting and socially engaging in my opinion is the Face 2 Face project in which he posted portraits of Israeli and Palestinian on each side of the separation wall of the two states. Many said it was impossible as it was high illegal, but it managed to be completed. The aim was to show how similar these two peoples were. I feel that though the images were humorous and light, they spoke about a much deeper level of unity. These people are brothers, yet they fight and kill each other.

After many successful but difficult projects, JR applied and was awarded a Ted Prize for his project, Inside Out. JR called for “a global art project” at the Ted Conference. This new project has extended what JR himself does with posting black and white portraits in urban areas. Inside Out allows for people around the world to submit portraits of their own. These portraits are then printed by the project and sent back in order to display in a public space. Guidelines have you group together with at least 5 other people with the same statement of purpose and then Inside Out makes it happen. The project is ongoing and submissions can be made on the site here. JR has recently brought a facet of his project that involves photo booths to Times Square in NYC. Check out the New York Times article here. I find this project so inspiring because you have so many voices just waiting to be heard all around the world. Many do not have the resources to have that voice heard. Inside Out gives these people the opportunity to share their stories with us, while creating a common ground.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Education

Global Action Project Curriculum

Global Action Project, an organization that works with youth most affected by injustice, has a rich website full of curriculum that is free to download and use in your own classroom. A quick sign-up gives you access to PDF lesson plans. Global Action Project notes that these lesson plans are by no means a solid blueprint. They are meant to explore and add to the workshop as you see fit. They also encourage you to share with them how you’ve adapted their curriculum to suit your classroom needs.

I downloaded workshop entitled Power that deals with the vast gap between the rich and poor in the United States. By identifying the cause of this inequality, we can work together to bring about social justice.

The workshop is full of interactive games to get the students involved. One game is a question and answer game about the media. You discover that the power the media has in today’s society dictates what we hear and most importantly, what we do not hear. This use of corporate media oppresses the interests of the minority. Did you know that only 3% of the 1400 local TV stations in the US are owned by people of color? Staggering statistics such as this are knowledge you gain from this workshop. You can download this workshop on Power here.

Be sure to check out the other amazing guides to workshops on Global Action Project’s rich website to bring to your classroom.

Categories
Community Programs

The Laundromat Project

A few years ago, we blogged about a community program known as The Laundromat Project. The Laundromat Project is a community-based art program that takes place in local laundromats across New York City. What makes this program unique is the fact that they use a space where people of different races and backgrounds converge. The laundromat is a common ground that all types of people come to, and the downtime created in waiting for laundry creates a perfect opportunity to engage in art. Right now, the project works out of different laundromats in the city, but their long-term goal is to create an art center that adjoins a laundromat and create a more permanent dialogue with a particular space.

I found the most groundbreaking aspect of the project to be its offering of residencies for artists. In their Create Change program, artists have the chance to break out of the independent mindset of working as an individual. Most artist residencies give artists an incubation space for their own work. The Create Change program allows artists to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the community. This departs from the norm, and allows for the artists in residence to explore what is possible when art is integrated into a community setting that would otherwise not be a part.

You can keep up with what The Laundromat Project is doing by visiting their website and calendar.

Categories
Community Programs

Expanding the Walls

Over the past four weeks, I have been working with high school students from the Studio Museum in Harlem Expanding the Walls (ETW) program. This amazing program is for students that come from all over the New York area. It is an opportunity that allows the students to learn digital photography over the course of 8 months. They also participate in a variety of activities that help to inform their final photographic project such as museum and gallery visits.

The program approached us at Photography and Imaging because they wanted to expand the experience with photography by learning analog photography before diving into digital. That’s where I come in. Expanding the Walls needed an analog aficionado.  I was up for the challenge. Starting in the beginning of February the students of ETW made the journey to the Photography & Imaging Department of NYU’s Tisch. During these weeks the students learned how to operate an analog camera, make compelling images, and enlarge their negatives in the darkroom.

I was so excited to introduce to these students my passion and it was a joy to see their engagement with the amazing art of photography. The workshop has come to an end, but I’m looking forward to working with these students until the end of the semester as they transition into digital. I hope to see the concepts they’ve learned to extend into their images as they work toward a final project.

To learn more about Expanding the Walls, check out their website.

  photocrati gallery