I returned from the 2023 European Cultural Academy workshop in Venice and I was giddy with creative energy. With barely enough time to recalibrate, I was given the proposal to create a new elective for the highschool students on anything I wanted. It was there that I proposed the concept of combining art and research to give students a taste of the art world from the stance of the Biennale. Under the title of ‘Critical Thinking’, I got the student to think of different social issues that would be important to explore through art. The first round for quarters 1 and 2, were focused on topics such as Homelessness, Pollution taking over the work especially in Food Security, Human Trafficking, and the struggle of artist in the real world. These topics were chosen by the students based on the issues they said were facing us.

The students were given articles to research over a period of 5-7 weeks. They had to choose their teams, draft their proposal, budget, and ideas before they started building. The students even had the opportunity to explore papier-mâché as another aspect to make their work three dimensional. One team was innovative in using Lego to illustrate the issue of homelessness – even going as far to make 2 levels so that one could see how people live in the sewers. The other team that worked on Human Trafficking, had to have special check-ins to ensure the mental and emotional safety of the students since the information was mature for their age. The work was so profound, it eventually became an art instillation for the school (Click for link). By the end of the assignment, the students walked away with understanding how to plan a project, group work ethics, and merging research with art.

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