Inspired by Sara Ahmed‘s Living a Feminist Life students have put together a feminist toolkit which includes feminist ‘objects’ that they have created and gathered. The goal is to identify and make art in multiple mediums that aims to disrupt existing societal norms and envision alternative ways of living and being in more just ways. Artistic “skill” (often very narrowly defined) was not a prerequisite for succeeding in this project. Rather, the goal is to thoughtfully and rigorously engage with feminist concepts in creative ways.
The toolkit evolved over the course of the semester through a series of mini-projects: a collage, a zine, a poem, and a button.
Collage: The first of 4 mini-projects was a collage that responded to Invisible Bodies, an art exhibition we viewed at the HUB-Robeson center. We received a tour of the artwork and an opportunity to engage in-depth with endeavors created in multiple mediums. Students were encouraged to include some art work that we saw at the HUB and juxtapose it with other images, photographs, drawings, and/or text. These images could be of items from the news, popular culture, or other artwork. If they were placing it in dialogue with other art work, this could be photographs or images we had discussed during class or beyond.
The collage has been an opportunity to interpret themes we have discussed during class (such as power, gaze, patriarchy, visibility, subjectivity, or others) through a creative exploration. We spent some time during class discussing the techniques and possibilities in collage as a medium for representation. The collage was prepared on a letter-sized paper and submitted during class. In addition to the collage, students submitted a 150-200 write up on their rationale, key focus, and process in putting together the collage.
Zine: The second mini-project involved making a zine. A zine is short for magazine, and typically associated with subversive ways to publish underrepresented voices and views. There are many important examples of feminist thought and ideas circulating through zines. Inspired by the week on graphic novels, where we read Queer: A Graphic History, as well as themes that had emerged in class, students prepared a zine that would form part of their feminist toolkit.
I encouraged you to look at the gaze, gendered labor, performance art, women artists, art-based activism, queerness, or other course themes. The zine was designed to explain a course concept to a general audience – the meaning of the concept and some examples to illustrate how that concept manifests. We looked at several zines during class for inspiration. In addition to the zine, students submitted a 150-200 write up on their rationale, key focus, and process in putting together the zine.
Poem: Students had two options for the third mini-project. The first option was a poem. Similar to the previous mini-projects, students were asked to consider what themes have been most meaningful to you in the semester thus far, and explore how a different medium (poetry, in this case) could be a meaningful avenue for communicating those ideas. The poem could be a self-reflection, observation, or other approaches that they wished to espouse. In addition to the poem, students submitted a 150-200 write up on their a) rationale, b) process in putting together the poem, and c) how they see it in connection with your feminist toolkit.
The other option was to analyze one of Gabeba Baderoon’s poems from her collection titled The History of Intimacy. These are the possible ones they could analyze: Focal length; Ghost Technologies; Effective Immediately; The Word; No Name; I Saw You Walk Toward Something; The History of Intimacy; Answering; or The Law of the Mother. The analysis was to be a total of 800-1000 words in length and would include responses to the following prompts: 1) How would you summarize the poem? 2) Why did you select this particular poem, and what about it struck you? 3) Building on what you found to be striking, how would you make self-reflective connections and/or connections with course themes? 4) How do you see this in connection with the broader arc of your feminist toolkit? Students could respond to these prompts holistically as an essay, or fill out individual responses to each prompt. I encouraged them to quote specific phrases to help substantiate their line of analysis.
Button: The final mini-project was a button. We had two sessions in the maker commons at Penn State where students learnt how to 1) format an infographic, and 2) make a button. Buttons are small items, so students were asked to think carefully about what they want to communicate and how best they could use the medium to do so. At that point of the semester, students had a general sense of the overall direction their feminist toolkit was taking, and they had to think about how the button worked in alignment with it. Along with it, students submitted a 200-250 write up with their rationale for the information on the button, how they saw it working in alignment with their overall feminist toolkit and the specific themes it relates to, and their process for making the button (possible aspects could include – what intrigued you, what challenges you faced, and your reflections on what buttons can do). Students designed the button using Adobe Express on a custom size 2.75” x 2.75” canvas. All the buttons are viewable here: https://bit.ly/Buttons2024