Teaching about Race and Racism Across the Disciplines

Part III: Celebrating our work

Curating a community art show

By now, the students have interacted with various media: David Hockney and Ramiro Gomez’s paintings, block printed fruit crate labels, and Juana Alicia and Judy Baca’s murals. Students have participated in over four discussions centered on labor and race and have created a minimum of four writing samples: Hockney art critique, Gomez artist statement, fruit label art critique, and diptych progress report. Students should have created two works of art. Now, there is one more assignment, which culminates in a physical art show for public viewing.

The teacher should take individual photos of every student’s complete project and reduce the size of each image, so that multiple can fit into one page. I would provide this master copy to every student, so everyone has access to all the completed works. The exhibit will result in just six works being displayed, so students make decisions on which best will fit in their ideal exhibition. The number of works can be increased for equity of works displayed, but also if exhibition space is larger. I typically have students select six works because our usual venue, a local public library, can only fit six works. I keep detailed records of which students have already been in previous shows or received accolades in the past to decide which student work to especially support in this particular exhibition (i.e. students that have never exhibited before).

This is a framework that I use to support students to curating an exhibit. As the standards outline, there are five steps in creating an effective exhibition. I have broken down these steps into  sentences that when combined, read as a cohesive ten-sentence exhibit proposal.

Select/Analyze/Prepare Exhibit

1. The 5 artworks are similar because __________.
2. The name of my exhibit is __________ because __________.

Present

1. I would display the 5 artworks at __________ because __________.

I would display them in this order:

1. The reason I put __________ first is because __________.
2. The reason I put __________ last is because __________.
3. The reason I put __________ in the middle is because __________.

Perceive

1. When someone goes through my exhibit, I want them to feel __________ because __________.
2. When someone goes through my exhibit, I want them to learn __________ because __________.
3. When someone leaves my exhibit, I want them to change __________ because __________.
4. Even if someone does not enjoy my exhibit, I want them to take away __________ because __________.