6: Critical Public Art Pedagogy

Looking over the artworks from this lesson, I was first impressed by Urban Omnibus and the Geologic City.  The using up of geologic material and laying down of new strata provides a metaphor for the passing of time and our simultaneous connection with the past, present and future.  I was also interested in how our layers of garbage can be viewed as representing our culture, and the question can be asked: what does this mean for our culture? The way buildings are constantly being torn down and demolished to build new structures on the same site is an example of palimpsest.  Architecture is "scraped away" and construction materials composed of elements from the distant past are used in the constructions and reconstructions of new works, providing an overlapping of time in addition to physical materials.

I also enjoyed the EcoArtTech site, specifically the idea of Indeterminate Hikes.  In our fast-paced world of information overload, it is important for one's physical and spiritual health to find spaces where one can slow down and contemplate nature as well as the overlapping terrains of psychological and environmental ecologies. In one of our downtown schools here in Durham, NC, there are green spaces and gardens incorporated into the campus and time is set aside to allow students the opportunity to play and contemplate, and perhaps more importantly, collaborate in the design and use of these areas.  Murals adorn the walls of the school, and various sculptures using recycled materials can be seen around the schoolyard, all created in a collaboration between the students, parents, and teachers.

Image from Central Park School for Children site: http://cpscnc.org/



 After exploring EcoArtTech, I immediately thought this could be incorporated into a project or lesson plan.  While the cost of providing Android devices to students may be something out of reach, perhaps students could be provided with disposable cameras or share a digital camera in order to take pictures of an "urban wilderness" or an architectural layer as mentioned in Geologic City. These photos can then be combined in a collage or layered to produce an overlapping of time and image, and discussed with the students as being metaphors for our culture, among other things.

This week, I came across some images that incorporated many of the ideas we have been discussing.  A Swiss photographer, Corinne Vionnet, has created a series of photographic works entitled 'Photo Opportunities', taking hundreds of photos of famous landmarks found on the Internet and layering them successively to produce images that invoke questions about memory and the passage of time. Here are a couple of examples, and a link to the collection: http://www.corinnevionnet.com/index.php?/photo-opportunities/

Images from www.corinnevionnnet.com