Play, Community, and Care through Art

Writing with Art

In the Fall of 2023, I taught a professional writing in the arts course and once more found myself back at the museum. The course’s primary aim was to have students practice creating and composing writing that might be found in art settings (museums in particular), such as reviews, artists’ statements, and promotional and educational materials. One could teach this class in many ways, but given my experiences with our campus museum, Ackland, I could think of no better way than to have students focus on the museum as one of our primary “texts.”

I had previously taught with an installation before. In the Spring of 2023, I curated an installation around the themes of Art, Rhetoric, and Social Justice. As I shared in a previous blog post, using art in my classes allows me to encourage students (and myself) to spend time with big questions and know that we aren’t alone in trying to grapple with complicated issues. It also makes us slow down in a way that is often challenging but welcomed once we adjust to a new pace of processing information. When I think about my own pedagogical shifts when teaching with art, I can’t help but think of the late painter Sam Gilliam, who said that art “messes with you. It convinces you that what you think isn’t all…it challenges you to understand something that is different.”

In the months before my professional writing course, I worked with Ackland staff to curate an installation for students to work with. I’m fortunate that the Ackland Museum has a fantastic collection. I spent weeks combing through the collection database, deciding what to include. I intended to bring together artworks, inviting us to think of art museums as spaces that can invite and inspire play and care for their communities. I wanted to select artworks that capture and reflect these themes unexpectedly.

For instance, Felrath Hines’s Escape immediately stood out with its vibrant colors and bold geometric abstractions. Was this painting reminiscent of a paper airplane trying to escape through a window? Or were the shapes and colors telling a different story? One of my favorite parts of the curatorial process is imagining how the art might create stories, inspire conversations, and leave visitors with more questions than answers.

The installation included five pieces of art that spanned mediums and time periods. I’ll preview them here and introduce each in a series of blog posts dedicated to reflecting on this class.

The Art

Hot Dog Bridge by Russell T. Gordon

Untitled by Gary Falk

Lavender Kite by Charles Hinman

“Dinner on the Ground of the Corinth Baptist Church” by Minnie Smith Reinhardt

Escape by Felrath Hines

The Exhibit in Context

I’m an avid museum-goer and often view museums as spaces where I can slow down and even care for myself. Of course, museums are not without their problems, which often include being perpetrators of colonialism and believing their own “myth of innocence.” It’s only possible to talk about the possibilities of museums by recognizing the harms. I am hopeful when I learn of opportunities with museums reflecting and interrogating their roles as museums within their communities (check out the Utah Museum of Fine Arts ACME program that is working to do this through various programming). I also know that change is possible when I read and study work from people like La Tanya S. Autry, whose work includes the Social Justice & Museums Resource List and the #MuseumsAreNotNetrual campaign. Asking questions and interrogating cultural institutions’ roles and responsibilities to their communities is essential if we want responsive and care-driven programming.

Many questions informed the work of our class this fall, but three in particular helped to shape the activities and writing we created. In my upcoming blog posts, I’ll delve into these questions concerning the installation and the class. Although the installation ended, I offer these questions for anyone who may also be thinking about the role of art spaces in extending care and providing space for play and reflection.

1. How can (and do) museums use art to promote care, play, and reflection within their communities? What responsibilities do museums have to their communities?
2. What might rhetoric offer us as both a lens and practice to create experiences that engage communities with meaningful experiences for art and reflection?
3. What role can writing play in museums to prompt reflection and cultivate community?

Postscript

I started this blog post before the fall semester began. I intended to write an introduction and invitation for people local to our community to visit our Ackland Upstairs installation for my ENGL 301: Professional Writing in the Arts Course. I wanted to allow students to learn about the process that shaped the installation and my intentions for how people might engage with the work in this space.

Well, as most semesters tend to be, things were quite chaotic in the weeks prior. I prepared notes, selected readings, and prepared for other fall events. I promised myself that I would return to this writing after the first week of class when things settled down and I would be in the rhythm of the term.

Then, something happened that would shake any sense of rhythm, pace, and normalcy that I (or anyone on campus) could hold onto. On Monday, August 28, 2023, a faculty member, Dr. Zijie Yan, was killed on campus. We became another community that had to figure out how to process collective trauma.

As I processed this violence, trauma, and loss, I also thought even more about what art can offer us during these times. In no way to I have all the answers to this, I don’t think anyone does, but I share this to say that I am still reflecting and processing, and the need for care and community became even more necessary in the months to follow.