UNIT OVERVIEW
Grade Level
10-12th (Traditional Schedule, 50 minute periods)
Characteristics of the Learners
This unit is geared towards high school students in a public education setting. This lesson is appropriate for students from any socio/economic background. Prior to this lesson, students will have experience with design techniques in mixed media and digital manipulation including: collage, visual analogies, photomontage, decoupage, and PhotoShop techniques for image manipulation. These lessons will build on students’ knowledge of the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design. Students will also have some familiarity with new media and concepts of contemporary art such as, juxtaposition, combines, image and text combinations (like those of Tina Modotti, Barbara Kruger and Shepard Fariey, and Banksy), installation, and video art. Artistic examples given in this lesson are intended to show how a variety of artists have recorded or raised awareness about conflict, and inspired resolution; therefore focus should be placed on the message rather than the techniques used.
Rationale
This unit explores the big idea of “Conflict and Resolution”. Across cultures and throughout history artists have made visual records of conflict; political, religious, cultural, social, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. My goals for these lessons are to expose students to a variety of art historical, cross cultural and contemporary examples of how artists have expressed conflict, raised awareness, and inspired change or resolution. This unit will ask students to draw on their personal experiences of conflict (amongst friends and family) as well as conflict going on around them (at school, neighborhood, city, nation, and internationally). Students will also research contemporary examples of conflict that they don’t have personal experience with as a way to encourage empathy and raise their own awareness. At this high school level students are gaining a broader perspective on the world while maturing and acquiring the skills needed to deal with conflict. This unit will additionally suggest that artistic expression can be a healthy and constructive means for both raising awareness of conflict, as well as creating a platform for the process of transformation and resolution; whether it is personal, political, local or global.
Enduring Ideas
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Essential Questions
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Historical/Cultural Context
This unit fits into the broad of study in History, Social Science, Art History, and Psychology. This unit requires students to integrate their understanding of global relationships, politics, religious views, etc. in order to raise awareness and offer suggestions for resolution. Instrumentalist artworks like the ones selected have been used in times of war to promote various viewpoints and to gain support for change (propaganda). It is important for students to understand that the artist’s role in presenting images of conflict is not neutral. Artists often respond to issues that are personally concerning, and do so with a particular agenda. Yet the teacher must prepare students to also be sensitive to various viewpoints and complex opinions surrounding issues of conflict. Contemporary artists present their concepts through a variety of media, techniques, and contexts. Students should consider how the intended setting or context of an artwork affects its message, as well as the particular audience who is likely to respond to that message.
Lesson #1
Description: This lesson is an introduction to the theme of “Contemporary Conflict and Resolution.” Initially students will be shown two videos of notorious British ‘Street Artist’ Banksy making a work on the wall separating Palestine and Iraq. Without background information, students will be asked to comment on how this artist demonstrates conflict. In large and small group discussions students will collaborate on idea gathering and investigate the complexity of the issue of conflict. Using given artworks as a starting point for investigation, students will see how various artists have responded to and represented conflict in their work. This lesson is a starting point for Lesson #2 which will require students research a topic of conflict and Lesson #3 where students will create two finished artworks; one presenting a conflict, and the other offering a solution.
Lesson #2
Description: In this lesson students will research a particular conflict of their choosing. The aim of this lesson is to raise the student’s awareness and promote empathy for the people involved in particular global, national and international conflicts. Students will not only investigate how the conflict began, but who is involved, what are the consequences or results, and what can be done about this conflict. Students will complete a worksheet to guide their research process. This worksheet includes a magazine “found text” title/poetry exercise to broaden the possibilities and push students beyond caption like explanations for their ideas and artworks. This research will prepare students to create a two-part artwork raising awareness and promoting resolution.
Lesson #3
Description: Based on the previous two lessons, students will create a diptych using Photoshop, Collage, Photomontage, Image and Text and/or Stencil techniques. One design is intended to raise awareness of the conflict and the other is to suggest a resolution or provide a call to action. In both works students should consider their audience; who is affected by this conflict and who they trying to reach in terms of raising awareness and calling to action? The audience should be the same for both images, as the work is intended as a set.
Lesson #4
Description: After the project is complete, students will get a chance to display their works in the hallway or teacher display board. For the final lesson in this unit, students will choose a work (other than their own) and write an artist statement in the form of an imaginary interview. Each student will share their artist statement and interpretation of the work with the class.
Selected Artworks
Selected artworks will be presented through video, digital projector, and colored reproductions and used throughout the four lessons. Artworks are presented on the Educational Resources page.
Extensions
- (Personal Journal or Sketchbook Assignment) Students write a journal entry describing a current conflict they are facing. Students use the journal or sketchbook as a personal space for exploring their conflict. Guiding questions may include: what caused the conflict, who is involved, or what is needed to resolve this conflict. Students will consider how to symbolically represent that conflict using the elements of art and principles of design as an abstract visual language. Artists to use for inspiration include: Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, William DeKooning, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, etc.
- (Community poster) Students could make a poster based on raising awareness and resolving their conflict that they could hang throughout the community and campus.