stencil street art: examining consumerism and social problems in west baltimore

Jessie and I planned this project to accomplish three things with our teen students: to understand how street art can be a powerful art form and tool for social change, to think critically about consumerism and the way that advertising affects us, and to examine issues in our own communities that we want to speak out about. We wanted the activity to be a way of subverting the methods that corporations use to market to us. Once we identified the tricks that companies use to sell us stuff we don't need, we asked the teens to use those tricks in their stencil artwork--catchy slogans and images that will catch peoples' attention. But instead of using these tricks to sell things, we used them to convey our ideas. We used temporary chalk spraypaint to stencil our slogans on historic Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore.

Teen students stenciling one of the slogans they came up with based on our discussions: Teach us, don't fear us.

This project took four class periods. The first two were discussion-based. Our discussion took two entire class periods because the students had so much to say about problems in their schools and neighborhoods. In the first class period, students decided to focus their artwork on two different sets of social problems: violence and problems in education. Because the class ended up being all-female, students chose to focus mainly on the most common form of violence they said they experience every day: unwanted attention from men on the street.

Stenciling a slogan based on how students said they feel when men holler at and harass them on the street: My body is only a small part of who I am.

lesson plan, day 2: examining consumerism

goals for today

To create stencils based on slogans about violence and the state of education in our community.

objectives for today

1. To introduce political “spoof” advertising in art: art that uses principles from corporate advertising to subvert consumerism, because it forces the viewer to really think about how they are being advertised to.
2. To create two slogans addressing violence in our communities and the state of education in our city.
3. To understand the process of turning drawings into stencils.
4. To discuss issues around public art/graffiti and learn about the role it has in our society.

activity 1: stand up/sit down review exercise

• Stand up if you think advertising is successful in getting people to buy things
• Stand up if you think advertising is successful in getting YOU to buy things
• Stand up if you have bought things that you didn't really need before because of advertising
• Stand up if you think it's possible to steal ideas from advertising to get people to stop and think
• Stand up if you think we can use “advertising” in our art in a positive way

Reflections on exercise:

1. What is one example of a positive way to use catchy slogans to convey a message?
2. How can we use slogans like that in our art to get people to stop and think?

activity 2: looking at images from Adbusters Magazine, and from the book Stencil Graffiti by Tristan Manco.

Adbusters response:

1. How are they turning advertising on its head?
2. Is it effective, in your opinion?

 Images source: Adbusters Magazine

Stencil Graffiti response (a copy of the book or a similar book is required):

1. Why do you think artists use public art as a way to get their message across to lots of people?
2. If an artist wanted to put their art in a magazine next to an advertisement, do you think they would be able to?
3. Why would an artist use a stencil instead of making a painting on a wall?

activity 3: come up with the slogans we want to use.

Word Association Exercise

Teacher will hold up several pre-selected images that are meant to invoke responses in the students relating to one of the two issues they decided to focus on (violence, and problems in schools). The first set of images will be ones related to education.

image set one: education

Source: elluminate.com

Source: 1on1parenting.com

Source: nytimes.com

Source: nfisd.org

Source: orgdotorg.com

Starting with the first set of images, students will say out loud the first word that comes to mind when they each picture comes on the screen (slideshow-style). Then, we will repeat with the second set of images.

image set two: violence 

(primarily gang and domestic)

Note: Some of these images are graphic. Know the students in your class and their maturity level.

Source: streetgangs.com

Source: opb.org

Source: daytondailynews.com

Source: weallbe.blogspot.com

I included the image of Rihanna not to feed into hype, but in hopes of getting students talking about an incident of domestic violence that they are familiar with. I have had several conversations with different groups of teens about Rihanna and Chris Brown, and most of the teens I talked to, male and female alike, believe Rihanna faked her abuse as a publicity stunt. I find this kind of widespread victim-blaming disturbing. When this subject has been brought up in classes, I have stopped classwork immediately in order to have a discussion about why students believe this.  But, those discussions are long, complicated, and best kept for a future blog post.

During the word association exercise, the teacher/facilitator will write down the words students come up with. Afterward, students will brainstorm which words to use to make each slogan.

activity 4: draw

After we have come up with our slogans, students will make drawings that they think fit with each slogan and idea. Then, the class will vote on which images seem to convey the images best.

We will demonstrate techniques of how to make our drawings into segments that can be cut out to signify positive and negative space.

vocabulary

consumerism

positive and negative space

street art
stencils

spoof ads




installation of stencil work at MICA

I created this installation of teen students' stencil work at MICA's Community Arts show, on display the past two weeks in the Fox 3 Gallery.

Quotes from student discussion during class, accompanying the installation:

“I take so much time to do my hair, nails and outfit to look NICE, not to look like a nasty girl. I try to look NICE. But all [older men on the street] do is look at my body and my body shape. It makes me have low self esteem because I feel like I can only attract old gross men. I mean, sometimes boys my own age will look at me, but mostly old men. We should be allowed to walk down the street without having to feel that way.”

“My teacher is scared of her students. It’s so obvious that she’s scared of us. It makes it so she can’t teach. One group of students always cusses her out, but they don’t even do that in other classes. They can tell that she’s scared of them. We spend so much time in that class with them cussing her out, I don’t learn anything. And then I am expected to take HSAs. How am I supposed to learn? I feel like I am going to fail them.”

“They make us take state tests, and nobody does good on them, but we all need to pass in order to graduate. I am a good student but I don’t take tests well—I get nervous and I don’t pass. I have eight bridge projects to do right now because I didn’t pass."