Project by: Sophie R. and Elisabeth (10th Grade)

Faculty Advisor: Shauna Finn

Please write a description of the project you are proposing. Why do you want to take this on, and what do you hope to learn?

We want to analyze political artwork and the different mediums/ technics that artists use to convey meaning in their work, especially in modern art which has become so abstract. We are most interested in the process and inspirations of the artist while making work.

What is your proposed outcome? How will you be able to demonstrate successful completion of this Project?

Our proposed outcome, after extensive research, is to create a piece of our own based on political issues we’re passionate about. We also want to interview an artist to not only learn about his/ her inspirations but also use their process to help fuel our own inspirations.

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Process 

Our first idea was a broad look at how modern politics are displayed through art. Quickly, we realized that it was really hard to research such a vague topic so we mapped out some of the issues we felt most passionate about and connected to because we believed if we were going to make art about an i

ssue it needed to be something we had a connection to be able to make meaningful art about it. We decided to do our project through the lens of feminism, a topic we are both passionate about. We wanted to explore how artist conveys this topic through their work. By researching the inspiration and process behind many art pieces, we were able to learn about how feminism is experienced differently dependent on things like sexuality, race, gender identity, and so much more. We were also very inspired by how artists are able to use their personal feelings, inspirations, and experiences to make beautiful art that conveys aspects of feminism.

First, we visited the Judy Chicago exhibit at the at the Brooklyn Museum’s Sackler Center of Feminist Art. The exhibit has the famous “Dinner Party” piece but also had a lot of her research and notes from her process of making the exhibit. We thought that the process pieces were especially interesting because we were able to see the exact steps she took while she approached representing these ideas artistically. Being able to look back on the ways she tackled representing such complex issues simply and abstractly really helped us later on in the project when we struggled with how we were going to dive deep into our chosen themes while remaining clear.

 

We also interviewed Sara Voit, an LREI parent.

 

When it came to making our own end project, we were inspired by the ideas of zines and the way they pulled from multiple outside media to form an overarching point/theme. We felt that this format would be perfect for our project because we could pull real, exact examples of the point we were trying to prove. By creating a zine we were also able to include multiple themes which was really nice because we were having a hard time narrowing things down to one specific issue, and we felt like in many ways we couldn’t do one without touching on another.

              

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The Pages:

What it Means to be a Woman

We chose to leave this page pretty blank to show how this particular theme is sometimes not as explicit as the others, and comes more through subliminal messages and exclusion of others. We chose to have the text look almost scrapbook-like to show how it’s made up of many different pieces, like homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and so much more, but when you piece it all together it becomes a very clear message that there are standards women must meet to be even considered “a real woman”.

Women’s Bodies in the Media

For this page, we went through magazines and, scarily easily, found a multitude of quotes, catchphrases, and blurbs who objectified the women they talked about and made unnecessary comments on their appearances. We then wrote some of our favorite quotes over the magazine pieces in a stark, red color that was supposed to mimic lipstick or nail polish, in order to repurpose the same tools these magazines tell us we need in order to reach some ever-raising standard of beauty, to render their trivializing words only noise in the background.

Sexual Harassment

For the sexual harassment page, we wanted to show how the process of reporting sexual harassment is purposely made into a maze or a game. The way it’s purposefully taking you through “chutes and ladders” in a way, just to try to discourage you from following through on a report.

Role of Women

For the role of women page, we decided to put the outline of a child on one side, and the outline of an adult on the other, with a gradient of white to dark pink in the background. We chose this to show how messages of what your role is as a woman in society start from a very young age and just gets more and more explicit as you grow up, hence the darker colors on the adult side. We tried to use examples that we remembered from our childhood for the child side. For example, growing up lots of girls see “cool”, “popular” girls on TV and in movies, like Sharpay, and therefore strive to mimic some of the behavior and attitudes of these girls. These kinds of portrayals of girls in kids movies truly horrible role models, especially when girls are fed them in just about every show they watch, they’re subconsciously being told that they shouldn’t strive to be smart, or leaders, but rather vain and spoiled.

 

Whitewashing

On this page, we wanted to convey the overwhelming duplicity of American media. The design is simple but mostly made up of white triangles with some black triangles intermixed. This is meant to show the ways in which oftentimes, minority women aside from Black women aren’t represented. The page does, of course, reflect as well the erasure Black women suffer, in the fact that it is definitely majority white triangles. The triangles also visually serve as a sharp, cutting contrast to the free-flowing color behind it, showing how the lack of representation restricts and divides people.