DY Art Center - Visual Arts: Identity Maps 3/11/2023

Places often become imbued with symbolic meaning - they inform how we perceive ourselves and can become an important part of our identity. Individuals use aspects of place to support various identity-relevant projects, such as creating a continuous sense of self and self-worth. For instance, culture can affect how children build values, language, belief systems, and an understanding of themselves as individuals and as members of society. Children can receive these cultural influences in different ways, such as through their parents, their environment, and the media. This art project is a way to synthesize all the information students are taking in about what their identity is composed of.

Mini Scavenger Hunt: through our memory of places that have impacted us

+ Name a place you have felt loved

+ Name somewhere you have felt heartbreak

+ Name somewhere you have gone to feel safe 

+ Name somewhere you go to remember who you are 

+ Name somewhere you never want to go to again 

+ Name somewhere you go that makes you feel like anything is possible 

Pick 3 of these and describe any details you remember about those physical locations, what each one felt like or smelled like etc. Name 1 thing you took away from each of those 3 places and 1 thing you left behind from each. Example: for heartbroken, maybe innocence was left behind, and discernment is something you might take with you.

We will use these descriptions to begin building an abstracted landscape of our lived experience, translating details into forms and colors and structures that imply very visceral and personal meaning.

Brainstorm:  Exploring different kinds of maps we can use to communicate about our lived experience as well as how our lives have been embedded in certain landscapes. Developing a visual lexicon unique to each student, with the support of existing map and identity structures to imagine where that experience resides inside of us. 

 

Adding tempera paint and drawn components:  Light layers of tempera can blend and soften surfaces into each other or give texture for specificity - tempera leaves behind a great surface for drawing location names or taking notes, maybe even sophisticated map symbols to understand the terrain. What details are required to tell a complete version of our story?

Final part: A black paper cut out with a human body, head or face as the missing piece - to overlay on top of our maps, to bring everyone’s different expressions into one aesthetic world together - just like our shape/skin is similar but holds so many different worlds and lived experiences. Students get to decide what that container looks like.

Artist Statement:

Will be a clue, an invitation for the audience to step into your map more fully.

Example: An Obituary - here lies the grave of my first love... Or maybe a Love Letter to a place that held you like your grandmother etc. Write to the place like it is a person, and see what comes up, and where this exercise takes you.

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