Graduate Public Practice at Otis College of Art & Design, working with artists S.A. Bachman and Krista Caballero present DISMANTLED, an innovative visual arts collaboration. At a time when students across the state are facing tuition hikes, emerging artists from Otis are participating in this exploration of public education, critical pedagogy, and the privatization of our school system.
DISMANTLED encompasses a series of outdoor projections and performances addressing debates surrounding the current educational crisis. This statewide project acknowledges California’s unique history while questioning what the future holds if our institutions of learning are no longer shaped by the core principle of affordable education for all. California educators including Peter McLaren, Gilda Haas, Janna Shaddock Hernandez and Ricardo Dominguez have informed this project.
DISMANTLED employs visual analysis to highlight narratives from a wide cross‐section of Californians and seeks to frame key issues such as the severe cutbacks in funding and financial aid, access to education, and students and families burdened by debt. In addition to interview texts, images of blowing bubble gum, historical footage from Brown vs The Board of Education and superhero school uniforms are utilized to raise awareness and provoke questions. Audience members will have the opportunity to participate in the project’s ongoing interviews as well as contribute to the creation of a site‐specific installation. Projection sites (San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno, Ventura) will serve as gathering spaces for sidewalk conversations and will run the gamut from neighborhood storefronts to high schools, colleges and libraries.
DISMANTLED PROJECTIONS BELOW:
PROPOSED PROJECT at BEGININNG OF SEMESTER
In 1960, the state of California adopted its visionary Master Plan for Higher Education establishing itself as the flagship public university system in the United States. 50 years later, Dismantled employs outdoor public projections to address the debates, realities and contradictions surrounding the current educational crisis. This public art project acknowledges California’s unique history while questioning what the future holds when our institutions of learning are no longer shaped by the core principles of exceptional and affordable education for all. Projection sites will serve as gathering spaces for street conversations and will run the gamut from neighborhood yard fences, homes, and storefronts, to community centers and colleges. Highlighting both individual and public narratives, Dismantled asks if Californians have lost their longstanding commitment to invest in one another. The project seeks to frame key issues such as: the severe cutbacks in funding and financial aid, students and families burdened by debt, faculty sanctions, the ongoing battle over Prop 209 and meritocracy, diminishing transfer options, migrant education, and charter schools. At a time when students across the state are actively protesting the deleterious effects of layoffs, payoffs and tuition hikes, students in the Graduate Public Practice Program at Otis College of Art & Design will work with S.A. Bachman, co-founder of the artist-activist collaborative THINK AGAIN. For this project Bachman’s collaborator is Krista Caballero, a new media artist and sculptor from California. David John Attyah, co-founder of THINK AGAIN will work as a project consultant.
Artist Biographies
www.agitart.org (THINK AGAIN)
Participants for the September 29th Roundtable Discussion on the “Dismantling of Education”:
Gilda Haas / Dr. Pop - Gilda is an organizer, educator, and economic development professional who has been helping grassroots organizations build economies from the ground up for thirty years. She has taught economic development at UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning for 25 years, where she also founded the Community Scholars Program. After organizing, teaching, and community building for decades under the assumed name of Gilda Haas, Dr. Pop has finally come out of the shadows to help move old-school popular education into new places and spaces.
David Attyah - David is a Professor at Glendale Community College, a public artist and printmaker. He uses the printed image to explore the intersection of the social and internal self.
Attyah is co-founder of the artist collaborative THINK AGAIN, whose work includes digital murals, billboards, exterior projections, and viral poster campaigns. Prior to coming to the visual arts, Attyah worked for a decade in public health and nonprofit management with emphasis on community development, HIV prevention, and human rights. Attyah received his MFA in Studio Art from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a Masters of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from Harvard University. He has his Bachelors of Arts from Princeton University in Public and International Affairs.
Young Black Scholars Representative - Supported and operated as an educational activity of the 100 Black Men of Los Angeles, Inc. <http://www.100bmla.org/> , Young Black Scholars is a comprehensive college preparatory program for African American and other minority high school students. The program brings together some of the best and brightest future leaders to participate in more than 40 workshops, programs, seminars, and conferences throughout the academic school year. The workshops and one-on-one activities help scholars and parents prepare for college admissions, selection, and continued success.
Richard Castaniero - Richard received his B.A. in English Literature from UC Berkeley and an M.F.A in Film Directing from UCLA. For over 10 years he owned, operated, and managed C Film, an independent production company that offered professional script and photography services. He is now currently working on a M.A. in Education focusing on special needs. This past year he worked as a Science Teacher for Migrant Education in the Rio School District of Ventura. In the spring of 2010 he developed and organized the first annual Rio Learning Academy Science Fair.
Zen Dochterman - Zen received his B.A. from U.C. Santa Cruz in Modern Literature, with an emphasis in French. He is currently working on the influence of radical social movements (particularly, Peronismo and the Cuban & Sandinista revolutions) on Latin American literature and aesthetics. His other interests include the German Aesthetic Tradition, European Romanticism & Modernism, Vitalism, the Anthropology of Religion, Communism and the Cosmic. He is currently on the Public School committee, a school with no curriculum. Classes are proposed by the public and when enough people have expressed interest the school finds a teacher and offers the class.
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