ART 21: Arturo Herrera & Play

I was inspired by the ART 21 video of Venezuelan artist Arturo Herrera, first as a fiber artist myself and secondly, by his discussion of the cultural hybridity of Latin American people.  My husband is Mexican and of Spanish and indigenous Indian descent.  Our children have the added European blood from my Scotch-Irish-German ancestors, so Herrera's use of collage in a variety of forms as both medium and metaphor were appealing to me.  With the cultural mix of today's public school classrooms, and the importance of PLAY for the elementary students I work with, the choice seemed even more appropriate. (Because the concepts of this lesson are abstract, however, and because younger students are less willing to cut their own work apart, I would use this lesson for 5th grade or older.)

I was impressed with Herrera's technique of selecting unrelated fragments of commercial, handmade, and decorated papers, cartoons & animations, and photography, photographing them in black and white, altering the film with water before development, and then arranging the resulting photos into wall installations very exciting.  An installation piece of this type created by students would not only result in a striking visual work, but also underscore the ideas of cooperation and community within the BIG IDEA of play, despite the cultural diversity in the art classroom. 

To connect the enduring idea to students' lives, I would ask students to research their own ancestry and select 3 cultural contributions to their unique identities that most define who they are or simply intrigue them. Where did their ancestors come from geographically and culturally and how could they prepresent that visually?  Did they discover family narratives or involvement in historic events; significant occupations and/or skills of family members; evidence of famous or infamous relatives? From their discoveries, I would ask them to invoke an attitude of play to create a mini composition (9x12 or smaller) illustrating each of the three chosen sources of their heritage, representational or abstract in form and using traditional and/or postmodern principles to guide their choices of imagery. 

Collage and its origins would be the next focus of instruction and students would examine examples from Picasso, Braque, and Gris as well as contemporary artists who work in the medium. Again, traditional and post-modern principles would be examined as these exemplars were explored.
Collage processes and techniques would be examined and practiced as well.

AFter mini-compositions were completed, students would be asked to cut them apart and combine pieces to form a single 9x9 collage to represent their own unique identity.

Finally, students would photograph their finished collages in black and white and then install the photographs as a single, larger collage that would communicate abstractly the composite identity of the class.