"Identity Blueprint" Exhibition

Baxter Street/ the Camera Club of NY

poster for "Identity Blueprint" Exhibition

This event has ended.

Identity Blueprint presents Polaroid and cyanotype photographs and experimental digital animations created by young women from Newark, NJ’s high schools participating in Gallery Aferro’s workshop-based program taught by working female artists: Evonne M. Davis, Lisa Elmaleh, Ann LePore, Emma Wilcox and guest lecturer Noelle Lorraine Williams. The 2010-2011 students came from seven different high schools across the city, and worked side by side with working professionals the gallery each Saturday for three months in free workshops. The goal of the program is to enable each student's sense of a competent, expressive self, by supporting experimentation, skill acquisition and peer-to-peer leadership.

Gallery Aferro’s hypothesis in launching the pilot was that the experience of making art is inherently about making choices, and that making choices is an empowering act for young women with an impact on their larger life trajectory. The program aims to create a “parallel universe” where it is the norm for girls and women to work well and enjoyably with “chemicals, computers and carpentry.”

Inspired by cultural anthropologist Mimo Ito’s studies on youth and digital media, we are focusing on the program, and the gallery’s functionality for youth as a “3rd space” – neither home nor school. This kind of space is: resource rich, safe, and both encouraging and challenging. Ito describes such spaces – both physical and digital – as important because they support youth and adults working together around projects, as well as fostering peer-to-peer learning. Such spaces offer opportunities for positive feedback for youth, nurture creative experimentation, and can help bridge existing gaps in digital literacy.

Cited most frequently by all of our students, regardless of other qualitative concerns about art education resources in their respective schools, was a lack of enough time for art during school. They wanted more time to work with materials or tools not available at home. They wanted more time to think, without interruption. They wanted more time to talk, about their ideas, or their challenges in realizing them. None of our surveyed students reported having art education experiences outside of school.

[Image: Katerin Salguero "Untitled" (2011) paper cyanotype 11 x 14 in.]

Media

Schedule

from December 16, 2011 to January 07, 2012

Opening Reception on 2011-12-16 from 18:00 to 20:00

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