How do we develop methodologies that not only address this question but also use it as a starting point to challenge discriminatory patterns? This was our question as facilitators and mentors to the participants of the Art workshop.
We chose collage as our primary medium. Collage offers space for creative expression, imaginative interpretation, and skill-building that inherently questioned who gets to be considered an artist and what kind of training is considered necessary to become one.
We worked with old magazines, recognizing how visual culture (especially advertisements) shapes ideals of beauty, success, and desirability. By cutting and reassembling these idealized representations, participants became agents in creating perspectives that challenge the dominant cultural narratives.
Playing with the double meaning of “class,” we invited participants to reflect on what they learned about different forms of capital (cultural, social, symbolic, economic) and to co-create new textbooks for a “classroom of resistance.” These books imagined a world where classism is no longer possible. Small groups took this proposal in their own direction, collaborating on original and critical projects.
Individually, participants created zines. This is a guerrilla publishing format traditionally used to circulate ideas excluded from the mainstream. Through collage, they explored their relationships to social media and the pressures of self-performance within digital spaces.
When the process became tiring, we paused for a restorative walk, creating a space to listen, reflect, and reconnect. This moment, shared under the August sun holds a memory of collective care and attention.
The plurality of voices found expression in group work on a large shared format, where every five minutes a new person contributed, leaving their mark and shifting the visual rhythm.
Over the course of the workshop, this year’s topic was explored both in what was created, but also how it was made, though methods of collective creation, critical interpretations, dreaming alternatives and bringing them to life by making them materialize in objects. Above all, this was a lively place and time of exploration and discussion, and a way to learn about their own interests and the interests of their peers.