Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 1/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
Seeking Cross-Cultural Exchange
Fairy tales offer humanity a conscious portal to world citizenship. A single tale told the
world over provides a vehicle for global linking through dialogical and critical exchange
centered on the multiplicity of possible interpretations. Compulsory to the overall
success of the exhibit #510: If the Shoe Fits… is a didactic commitment to provide
children an occasion to use critical analysis in concert with communicative skills via text,
language, and images. The exhibition's mission is to promote world citizenship among
participants, based upon their own inquiry, by providing an opportunity for cross-cultural
awareness leading to what Greene (1988) refers to as a free exchange of conscientious
expression. I question whether art educators will freely embrace local and distant
collaborative initiatives. Will collaborative practice among art educators successfully
provide a conduit to facilitate discourse that enhances students' global awareness?
The exhibition will prove to be my laboratory to determine if teachers will value
collective curricular design and practice or begrudge the additional time, effort and
energies required?
Call for Consciousness
Ancient and contemporary philosophers, social scientists and educators agree that the
future of society rests in developing the consciousness of youth. The Greeks modeled a
"Socratic" approach to education as a means of good citizenship. In The Republic, Plato
(mentored by Socrates) educated his students through dialogue that embraced inquiry.
The discourse was based upon questions and answers. The Greeks developed theatre as
an art form to posit "universal" questions about the interconnected roles of man, nature,
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 2/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
and the workings of society funneled through ritual and catharsis. With the assistance of
a collaborative team on deck (the chorus) and the Gods above, the Protagonist (steeped in
hubris) suffered irrevocably while providing the audience a vehicle to eventually arrive at
a state of consciousness. Protagonist, chorus, and audience alike achieved their
consciousness supported by a brotherhood of philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle,
each religiously devoted to the power of inquiry and citizenry.
Centuries later Norman Cousins (cited in Ikeda, 1995) suggested that the future of
mankind depends upon the willingness of citizens to embrace an educated global
consciousness instead of maintaining an unconscious grip on tribalism; which produces
dependent societies in a state of semi-consciousness. Brazilian frontline literacy fighter
Paulo Freire concurred with Cousins. Freire (1998) recognized that dominated
individuals process information through a filter of inferior perceptions-- an outside
objective reality. He framed literacy around the act of awakening students'
consciousness. When the popular consciousness grows incrementally, acknowledging
new information as it emerges, the society evolves from a semi-intransitive consciousness
to a naïve consciousness- still under domination but with renewed perception. The elite
as well as the dependants dread this change of consciousness. Finally, critical
consciousness is achieved through an alliance of action and reflection. Both Bastos
(2002) and Shor (1992) concur that a critically conscious individual who recognizes their
world anew is transformed and empowered. By transcending the lower levels of
consciousness the transformative process begins. Freire's evolution of consciousness
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 3/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
agrees with Makiguchi's (1989) three classes of human behavior that represent
progressive levels of awareness: 1) Unconscious behavior 2) Conscious behavior 3) Selfreflective behavior (individually conscious living and socially conscious living). Ana
Mae Barbosa a Brazilian art educator agrees (cited in Bastos, 2002) that visual literacy
also points to aware citizenship; a political process of historical and cultural
consciousness that leads to empowered participation.
Feminists
In preparation to work with a feminist focus group, towards development of curricula
exemplars, I reviewed texts that discussed feminist visual culture. My intent was to
review a compilation of historical feminist theoretical practice rather than to restrict my
focus to present-day trends. As the literature review has borne out, the marginalization of
female artists in the 20/21st centuries is not dissimilar to the planned marginalization of
women whose talent was telling tales centuries ago, whose words were repeatedly
censored and or appropriated (copying, reusing, borrowing of images and/or ideas
consciously or unconsciously). It is that parallel that I intend to draw upon in my
research methodologies.
The alienation and isolation of female artists is nothing new. Carson (2001) declares that
until the end of the 19th century women were denied access to the training required of
professional artists. The exception included privileged white independent American
women living and working in Rome, among them, Harriet Hosmer who ran a large studio
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 4/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
employing 20-30 workmen to complete her monumental sculptures. She was criticized
for not doing her own carving unlike her male counterparts that chose not to carve their
works. Barbara Hepworth worked with Henry Moore in London carving domestic
experiences. Edmonia Lewis was an exception as she was the first woman of color to
achieve recognition. Working in white marble her subjects often referenced oppressed
peoples. Marginalization of women supported the hegemony of men in cultural practice.
Rozsika Parker has analyzed female embroidery skills back to their Victorian cult status.
Currently sculptural fiber art is exhibited as "craft." Such sculptresses remain
marginalized today unless they also work within an alternative medium.
Visual culture is a privileged site for the making and interpreting of the unconscious.
Pajaczkowska (2001) defines feminist visual culture as evidence made up of imagery,
signs, styles, and pictorial symbols of how the female is seen in society. Feminist practice
questions multiple perspectives including visual anthropology, social cohesion and/or
rebellion, art history, interpreting unconscious fantasy through psychological theory,
gender and sexual expectations, cultural encoding, semiotics, and textual analysis of
imagery. This is accomplished through a variety of theoretical practices. A structuralist
approach analyzes culture through binary oppositions. For feminist's this has often
resulted in researching the negativity of unspoken communications with regard to
otherness including gender, race, and class. Human realities are not so neatly separated
into binaries and early feminists explored the psychoanalytic theories of Freud to
understand the origins of conflict. Still others chose to consider Derrida's Deconstruction
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 5/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
(poststructuralist) theory as a means to understand that differences of culture of one
binary difference extend to other binaristic incongruities. Foucault's 'eye of power' is
fodder for feminists Metz and Mulvey who are interested in the theory of Gaze. Mulvey
particularly associates the visual codes of classic realism with passive female objects and
active voyeuristic subjects with male objects. To that end, a new field the Female Gaze
(Lloyd, Pajaczkowska) combines the theories of Freud, Lacan, Luce Irigaray, Julia
Kristeva, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel and Juliet Mitchell. Kristeva seeks a balance
between meaning conveyed through symbolic forms (syntax and logic) and that conveyed
through semiotics (pre-symbolic forms of communication e.g. rhyming, music, and/or
imagery) convinced that feminine language would emerge disrupting patriarchal
discourse. In contrast Irigaray proposes other ways of negotiation without privilege- a
duality of sight and a mastery of the gaze. Painters Lisa Tickner and Rosemary Betterton
are more concerned with the experience of living within a female body than the
experience of looking at the female as a man might from outside.
Over the past three decades feminist art theory has focused on two key issues: 1) the
objectification of the female body, and 2) marginalization of female artists. Feminist art
of the 70's was preoccupied with goddess culture and vaginal iconography. Artists
included Lisa Tickner, Suzanne Santoro, Judy Chicago, Carolee Schneeman, Hannah
Wilke, and Eleanor Antin. According to Lloyd (2001) in the 70's feminist painters saw
their difference as central to their work and many turned to photography, performance
art, and conceptional art. Each new medium could be considered adversarial and less
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 6/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
restricted by exemplars. However, Jenny Saville's paintings were 'strategic interventions'
(p. 48) challenging the male gaze she raised issues about fear and/or desire of atypical
body types. Likewise Monair Hyman produced 'active interventions' (p.48) consciously
referencing stereotypical female artwork and then intentionally disrupting the image with
patterns that purposefully do not repeat. Some artists of the70's took a sabbatical to have
children and upon their return, as was the case of Bobby Baker, the work of the 90's
confronted cultural coding of artist mothers and their confrontation of gender stereotypes
The 80's focus was on deconstruction and multiculturalism. At the end of the century,
feminist concentration was of polarization through a historical stance. The Sensation
Exhibit in London 1997 featured the works of Sarah Lucas Fried Eggs and Kebab, Mona
Hatoum's Deep Throat, and Jane Simpson's Sacred. Chronologically feminist slogans
have echoed the artistic focus described above including the Right to be Equal,
Celebration of the Right to be Different, and both Coming out of the Closet and the
Diversification of Political Agency due to Fractured Consciousness.
Pedagogical Prospects
In preparation to receive submitted curricula for the exhibition's on-line resources, I
reviewed literature on inquiry and evidence-based pedagogical praxis including shared
inquiry, visual thinking strategies, contextualist and constructivist models of inquiry,
notions of transfer, and holistic multicultural artmaking processes.
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 7/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
Shared Inquiry (literacy model of evidence-based text inquiry whereby students
individually and collaboratively mine a text for interpretation), a Socratic (Adler, 2004;
Ikeda, 2003; Great Books Foundation, 2004) approach to discourse that enables students
to develop an argument while recognizing classmate's logic, promoting understanding,
and finally transcending differences (Freire, 1998), combined with visual thinking
strategies (VTS) would plait text-based literacy with that of the visual literacy Barbosa
refers to. Western culture has privileged the spoken word, considering visual
representation as second rate. However, the immediacy of visual culture (wealth of
images in our culture that shape who and what we are in relation to one another,
collapsing the idea of hegemonic separation between culture and high culture) is not to be
denied. These two literacies are fundamental to the exhibition that will incorporate both
text and images (including foreign languages) of a fairy tale. They will provide a
pedagogical foundation for this research project.
Shared Inquiry is the nucleus of the Great Books Foundation’s approach to literacy and
lifelong learning. Mortimer Adler led adults in discussion of the Great Books at The
University of Chicago’s Democratic Movement in Education and developed the Great
Books Foundation with Robert Hutchins. Adler was an education reformer who worked
tirelessly into his nineties for the Paideia Group (accessed 03/20/04) a non-profit
organization, with the mission of improving teaching in schools to better prepare future
citizens. The goals for participant students include: To earn a living, to be a citizen, and
to be a lifelong learner. Comparable to the core curriculum of Paideia, the Great Books
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 8/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
Foundation’s (accessed 03/20/04) cogent shared inquiry utilizes Socratic discussion
techniques (incorporating factual, interpretive, evaluative and follow-up questions) to
encourage individuals to consider ideas by interpreting exceptional works of literature.
In the Great Books model, the discussion leader’s role is to pose questions (supplying no
answers) to assist participants in developing personal interpretations of the text via
evidence gained through group exploration. Because interpretive questions inherently
have multiple answers the sharing of perspectives enhances the overall appreciation of
the material read.
Developmental psychologist Abigail Housen (VUE: Housen, 2004) has devoted her
research to the viewing process and the stages of aesthetic development addressing how
people interact with art, specifically their thoughts and verbal reactions. Phillip
Yenawine (VUE: Yenawine, 2004) Director of Education at the Museum of Modern Art,
had been searching for a more effective means of delivering museum education when his
research led him to Housen in 1988. Housen and Yenawine’s collaborative discoveries
(VUE, 2004) revealed that "beginning viewer" teachers, with proper training, could
facilitate students’ considerable growth in art viewing and learning aptitude. VTS
produces measurable growth across learning abilities, cultures, language and ethnic
backgrounds. Children develop cross-curricular competencies because VTS engages
their curiosity and motivates participants to transfer reinforced skills to other material.
VTS does not teach art. It utilizes art to teach critical thinking, communication skills, and
visual literacy to youth. Development is motivated within three categories: viewing art of
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 9/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
growing complexity, replying to developmentally-based questions, and participating in
group discourse facilitated by teachers. Similar to shared inquiry praxis, within a VTS
discussion students are required to support their arguments with evidence found in the
artwork.
The art exchange between distant schools will be facilitated through the Internet. In
searching for studies that address both cyberpedagogy and traditional art instruction, I
found Erickson's (2005) longitudinal study on transfer (an organic transfer of knowledge
from one area to another).
A Design Based Research Collective comprised of faculty and researchers collaborated
with seven practicing teachers over four years to study the probability of transfer,
student's ability to recall and utilize knowledge correctly in a different context.
The web-delivered program Who Cares For Art? (WCFA) introduced a broad theme:
"We all treasure things that have special meaning for us" (p. 172). Researchers built
upon Haskell's (cited in Erickson, 2005) contention that "declarative knowledge—
knowledge of or about something—is the most crucial for transfer" (p. 175), and
Bereiter's (cited in Erickson, 2005) argument that "what is typically viewed as a failure of
knowledge to transfer is actually a failure to teach the conceptual knowledge in the first
place" (p. 175).
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 10/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
Transfer of knowledge materialized in unexpected patterns within WCFA. Inquiry is a
strategy that the students shared. Teachers were required to provide students with
circumstances to exercise the strategies of inquiry collectively. Over time students
understood that the quality of their questions was based upon their knowledge. By mining
their curiosity they were inspired to seek their own answers. This tactic is parallel to the
evidence-based inquiry of VTS and shared inquiry.
According to Milbrandt, Felts, Richards and Abghari (2004) contextualist art programs,
those that investigate all facets of an artwork, often take a constructivist approach where
yet again the students through active, social, and creative participation are involved in
designing their learning process. In 1997, Anderson and McRorie (cited in Jeffers, 2002,
p. 160) defined contextualist art programs as those that are collaborative in nature and
focus on social issues. Jeffers, McKay and Monteverde (2002) concur with Milbrandt,
Felts, Richards and Abghari (2004), Sullivan (2002), and Goodman (1996) that in such
classrooms artworks are critically assessed in opposition to formalistic aesthetic ideals of
beauty and taste. McKay and Monteverde's students are taught to challenge the following
viewpoints: there is authority in an individual art maker, art is to be valued for its
originality, it is permanent, or that it's formal elements outweigh the issues it represents.
Working collaboratively students focus on interpreting artworks by constructing related
evidence while simultaneously empowering one another to comprehend the visual culture
surrounding them. Inspired by the webbing approaches of Hazelroth and Moor and Karen
Keifer-Boydoffer (cited p. 146) they offer a variety of contexts for classroom exploration
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 11/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
including: artistic/aesthetic, intellectual/philosophical, social/political, and
beliefs/spiritual. They encourage their students to tap their personal experiences in
association with their research when investigating artworks. They encourage "dialogiclooking" (p.150) whereby students exchange viewing perspectives to consider the artist's
subtext by searching for evidence within the work itself. Sullivan (2002) uses the term
''transcognition" to refer to the collective process of students constructing meaning via a
communal commitment to imagination and critical deliberation. Likewise, McKay and
Monteverde assert that interdisciplinary connections (schooltext) can be made to the
context and subtext results of their art lessons. By building an art centered curriculum
that is relevant to the student, the context of the lessons transfers to meet the objectives of
other subjects providing a holistic learning experience.
A holistic approach to multicultural art equally embraces the notion that students should
be at the critical core of their learning process, rendering it authentic. Adelaide Sanford
(1996) is on a mission to educate students as citizens of the world "irrevocably
intertwined and interdependent" (p.5). She calls for the presentation of materials
grounded in truth as a top priority. Authentic education must begin with reclaiming the
truth in all lessons and distributing it freely. Artist Rayna Green (1996) prefers to fight
off "homogenization" (p.44) by reclaiming truth through artwork. Amalia Mesa-Bains
(1996) warns that intercultural curriculum requires a conscious awareness of unique gifts
and shared histories among groups, when most public schools are made up of multiple
minorities' coined "new urban majorities" (p.36). Goodman concurs (1996), challenging
educators to forge collaborative efforts with community cultural centers to provide public
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 12/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
reflection and debate, blending critical and imaginative sensibilities towards a true
democracy.
Art Exchange
A major component of the collaborative element of my exploratory research is the
exchange of artworks between distant schools. In order to more fully understand the
history and practice of correspondence art, I have reviewed the circumstances of its
source and the various phenomenological (common experiences affected by image and
the practices of seeing, showing, and imagining) trends that have affected it as a
recognized artistic discipline of the marginalized.
Correspondence Art has contributed greatly to communication borne of a political
orientation rooted in 60' s ideology (Crane, 1984) with a far-reaching trajectory of three
political ideas: democratization, search for alternative systems, and a rejection of
capitalist economies. The mechanics of aesthetic communication involved production
and posting of the artworks. The artist retained absolute control over production by
virtue of his/her own actions. Conversely, the artist was subject to governmental
restrictions when posting; the cost of postage could be prohibitive to their practice. The
postal system, while integral to correspondence art, was not considered the "medium"
with which the artist worked. The system allowed the artists to engage in an art exchange
however it was considered neither the object nor the subject of the art. For many artists
mail art was an alternative to the ritualized protests of the time period; particularly as
widespread communication became increasingly dependent upon expensive electronic
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 13/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
intermediaries (Poinsot, 1984) such as the phone and more recently the Internet. Artists
chose to produce mail art as stimuli (Crane, Hoftberg, Ravicz). Each package's intent
was to unite cognitive and perceptual characteristics in order to shape a public awareness.
Visual culture was charged with unleashing consciousness by ordinary language and
common images. Artists who sent messages without requesting recompense generated an
unusual awareness within society, one outside the boundaries of a capitalistic market
place (Cassidy, 1984). The goal of correspondence artists was often to provide society
(often internationally) with a meta-language for questioning and pervasive change. The
art form was legitimized globally as 'everybody's medium' forged in content versus style,
assessment free (no juries/price tags). By resisting commerce and unveiling common
absurdities, mail artists sought to reform community (Ravicz, Groh) by instilling a
commitment to awareness as an alternative life style. As behavior began to gesture
towards the unrestricted, creativity sought democratization.
Correspondence artists were influenced by a host of philosophers, but more importantly
by conceptual art movements including dada and fluxus (Crane, Friedman, Groh,
Higgins, Poinsot, Ravicz). The influence of dada was reflexive of change experienced in
society and the natural environment and the simulacra effect produced within the
artworks. Artists filled the distance they traveled away from the market place with
attempts to retrieve their individuality and humanism often through whimsy and
irrationality. Collage was used to reveal a new sensibility in the spirit of critical
commentary with an inclination toward contradiction.
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 14/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
According to Crane, mail artist Ray Johnson's prolific mailings were infamous, sent
through the network commonly known as the New York Correspondence School (NYCS)
in the 60's, yet his body of work dates back to the 40's. He introduced correspondence art
to more people than any other single artist. The content of his mailings concerned
relationships between people and/or objects. Known as The Master, Mr. Citizen, and
Dada Daddy of the Network he used the NYCS from 1962-79. In 1970, the Whitney
with Johnson produced the first exhibition of mail art in a major museum. Johnson killed
off the NYCS through a "dead letter" in the New York Times obituary column.
George Maciunas coined the term fluxus (Latin translation to flow) in 1961 in
anticipation of a magazine, which never materialized. As a movement, fluxus was
cooperative. The artwork experimented with intermedia (fusion of multiple medias
resulting in a new media) and conceptual art (less emphasize on objects, focused on the
use of text and photography.) In 1962, Maciunas collaborated with Nam June Paik and
Wolf Vostell in West Germany on the first fluxus event. The fluxus movement generated
a rash of fictitious organizations, galleries and archives whose publications were
fabricated via photocopy machines. All of which established a precedent for the
production of all manner of alternative publishing, including artists' books and dadazines.
In 1992 artist and critic Ken Friedman (also a member of NYCS) published an
International Contact List of the Arts, a collection (eventually 5,000 entries) of names
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 15/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
and addresses of artists and those interested or of interest. He established and edited the
initial 12 issues of dadazines a NYCS Weekly Breeder publication.
Two lesser-known forms of mail art are ARTTEXT and Language Painting. Kenneth
Coutts-Smith (1984) developed ARTEXT as a personal response to "return both the
content and the practice of art to a social commitment and to a creatively progressive
moral viability." His practice began with a series of Dadaist image and text statements of
social and cultural criticism (made with alphabet rubber stamps) often conceived for
specific exhibitions and distributed through the mail. For Schede in Brussels CouttsSmith provided a rubber stamp, which read "ARTWORK CANCELLED BY
CULTURAL CONSUMPTION," (p. 78) a stamp pad and a mounted rigid board.
Viewers indicated their consumption by canceling a portion of the work with the stamp
provided. The procedure continued until the text and meaning was entirely eradicated; in
the end consumed. In his struggle to transcend the capitalist marketplace his language
paintings, acrylic paintings using texts, also sought content over style. The text was often
a quote somehow related to visual culture.
An additional art form of subversive commentary that is distributed by hand or mail is the
zine; non-professional, non-commercial, small circulation magazines produced, published
and distributed by individual authors. Zines, according to Stephen Duncombe (1997)
have a history of giving voice to the marginalized while simultaneously creating a
fraternity of underground publishers. As with all marginalized peoples their power lies in
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 16/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
their ability to express their interpretation of the circumstances with which they find
themselves. They do not wait to accumulate credentials that would allow them access to
professional publications. Zines privilege the personal rather than the powerful. There is
an urgency to zinester's communication that is wrapped in a freedom of speech guarantee.
Fanzines were a method of communication among science fiction fans in the 30's and by
punks in the mid-70's. In each instance, counter-capitalistic culture groups found a voice
by publishing their own periodicals. Demographically, zinesters have been typically of
white middle class heritage. However, they are more aptly identified by the beliefs they
subscribe to. Eventually the prefix "fan" was dropped and an explosion of zines
developed within the following cultural groups: science fiction, television, film, politics,
music, sports, political agendas, identity, cultural critique, personal, underground scene,
zine network, cultural fringe, religious, vocational, health, sex, travel, comix, literary, art,
and all issues unable to neatly conform to any of the above categories.
Although there are some collectives, most zines are owned and operated by one
individual who typically will accept outside input. Production costs vary depending upon
circulation but swapping via a barter system is a practical (decreased postage) and
common practice. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 titles are in circulation.
A zine's lifespan can encompass several years or be fully realized within a single issue, a
'one-shot'. Zines characteristically begin with an editorial, leading to opinionated essays
or 'rants,' and interviews, followed by reviews of other zines, bands, books etc. From
cover to cover poems, hand drawn commix or illustrations, and reprints from mass media
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 17/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
(for information and/or ironic effect) are assembled in a makeshift cut-and-paste layout.
(With the increase in accessibility to desktop publishing of recent years, some zines have
taken on a more polished aesthetic.) The mandate of a zine is authentic communication,
albeit on the perimeter of society, soliciting answers to the following universal questions:
How to contribute as an individual, how to build a cooperative community, how to create
value in life and produce something that is theirs? As contrarians their mission is to
answer such questions while simultaneously situated in opposition to mainstream society.
The community they seek to build and protect is that of their circulation, their 'network.'
Two networks (feminist and punks) joined in the 90's to establish the unified zine Riot
Grrrl. Founded in Olympia, WA, Riot Grrrl networks are in cities across the nation and
hundreds of zines are published by girls who share an allegiance to the freedom of
expression about issues that personally concern them. Within the covers of Riot Grrrl,
female authors articulate and counter the established demands of males and the media
about how girls should look, behave, think, and speak within society with a revolutionary
agenda of their own. Through testimonials the writers are reflexive of their feminist
predecessors of the 70's in their zeal to raise the consciousness of the dominant society to
one that provides an equitable voice to all.
Kate Eichorn (2000) posits that Riot Grrrl is predominately produced by queer and/or bischool girls. She attributes the proliferation of lesbian publishers due to their innate
alienation by mainstream media. Because these girls feel invisible within their student
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 18/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
body, the zine offers them an outlet of expression and to some extent a public venue to
act out and be validated in return for their efforts. This has proved especially beneficial to
girls in a rural environment who suffer from isolation as well as alienation. The
boundaries of their isolation are erased by the size of their zine's circulation. The girls
are able to seize control of their oppressive situation if not in their classroom in their
network.
Towards Collaborative Action Research
Collaboration, a joint intellectual and artistic effort, is at the heart of the exhibit #510: If
the Shoe Fits…and soul of its corresponding action research. After an overview of both
the art techniques that may be employed and various pedagogical approaches to art based
cross-cultural exchange within the field, a review of collaborative concerns is required.
The following review will be expanded upon within the coming months through my
pursuit of process-orientated documentation.
Taylor Gutermute (2000) a veteran of twenty or more commissioned collaborative art
works, has a template of participant initiation to the collaborative process including a
slide presentation and discussion of the apprentice, workshop, and collaborative
processes. Her students and/or participants share in planning the concept, work schedule,
process, and determining their method of assessment. Her experience has taught her that
flexibility is a highly valued skill with regard to: self evaluation, negotiation, aesthetic
sensibilities, cultivation of trust, thinking, processing, working, change, risk, criticism,
learning, listening, leading, and following. In reviewing her projects it is clear that she
has built upon previous successes with each project.
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 19/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
MacCarthy and Pastro's (2000) collaborate across the aisle of art and language by
correlating the rules of language to the principles of art and connecting the processes of
art making and writing as well as exhibiting and publishing.
The entrance to #510: If the Shoe Fits… will be graced by a mural collaboratively
designed and executed by two SAIC art educators and their students. Both men are
experienced mural makers. To understand the process I sought literature on community
based mural organizations. Chicago and Los Angeles are ranked as the two most
acclaimed cities for muralism. The Social and Public Arts Resource Center (SPARC)
was founded in 1974 by Judith Baca and two other women. Olivia Gude belongs to
Chicago Public Art Group (originally Chicago Mural Group), which is only slightly
older. Both Baca (1996) and Gude (1996) agree that as art students it is easy to become
generic- devoid of culture specificity and that multiculturalism as an educational element
does not yet sincerely address issues of privilege and/or power or cross- cultural
awareness. Both women concur that the mural movement has presented an authentic
model of multicultural art work in the community, because the artists went to the
community with respect for those who lived within its boundaries, irregardless of their
race, gender, economic status, religion or gang affiliation. The process of making a public
monument is truly public when the artistry is communal; inspired and created by its
citizenship. The process can take months or years to develop and emerge as a finished
Thesis Proposal Literature Review
Kate Loague 20/20
CollaborAction:
Collaborative practice as an international social force; uncovering conscious
partnerships of critical pedagogy in the classroom, in the gallery and on-line.
artwork. It is a "cultural layering" (p. 19). The mural process allows participants (teachers
and students alike) to investigate their cultural heritage and then claim and celebrate it.
"Tenacity" (p.20) is the required element to overcome lack of resources, skill, or
knowledge. Both also agreed that to be effective as a social force one had to locate an
affinity with an organization or group. In the same way, the affiliation with other artists
would feed their artistic spirit and stave off isolation common to studio work.
Interestingly enough the interview ended with Judith calling for others to research
models, struggle to create new ones and to report back.