Social Activism + Art: Printmaking
I taught this lesson to my Art Foundations classes - high school freshmen, sophomores and juniors.
We began by discussing ways in which art has been and can be used to protest injustice and take social action. Students then chose a topic or event that they wanted to focus on for the course of the project and wrote a short research essay to familiarize themselves with their topics. We then chose images to work from and transferred them onto our linoleum blocks. From there, we carved and printed our blocks, experimenting with color blends and color printing as well as black and white prints! The outcome was varied, but so awesome to see. Some students took to this project in ways I hadn’t seen all year, and I was impressed and touched to see the depth of thought that many of them put into choosing their topics and carrying out their ideas.
Although this project was designed by another teacher, I still learned a great deal from teaching the project and working through the questions and challenges that arose while we completed the project. I was especially happy with the solution I created to make a printing setup that could be easily put away when it was time for my ceramics classes (video below!).
