School as Prison
Now in the 4833 rph Flex Space Gallery: School as Prison and African DiasporaTextiles
School as Prison
Prints from artist Kyle Farrell, created in conjunction with students from Gilbert High School in Gilbert Arizona, illustrate how the school would look if it had been built as a prison or a shopping mall. Students from B.E.S.T. High School, will be collaborating on robots that recall the shape-shifting of the TransFormers or Voltron, although instead of cars and planes becoming robots, we’ll be anthropomorphizing institutions like schools, hospitals, prisons, factories, etc. Based on the work of writers from George Bernard Shaw to William “Upski” Wimsatt, students are exploring ideas about the way education fails to achieve its liberatory promises, and submits unwilling participants to a degrading regime of pointless tasks.
African Diaspora Textiles
“African Diaspora Textiles” is a project in which students in Art 1 classes at B.E.S.T. High School created work in applique, embroidery, and weaving, in emulation of African-descended design traditions from throughout Africa, the West Indies, and the American South. Students scanned their work and did research on topics related to African textile design, and put
together a magazine to be distributed to residents of the South Chicago area where B.E.S.T. is located.
photos by HIllary