Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Research Paper
Department
Whittier Scholars Program
First Advisor
David Sloan
Abstract
My senior project explored how the visual arts can be used to express one’s identity and emotions. I designed an art curriculum, based on identity research, with projects focusing on the theme of identity and self-expression. I tried to be specific enough when designing project assignments to give students clear guidance, while also making them open-ended, allowing for many interpretations to incorporate the student’ differing interests and levels of identity development. I want these projects to challenge students to think about who they are, without pushing them beyond their current limitations of comfort level, as far as self-expression was concerned. I concluded both two-dimensional and three-dimensional projects in this curriculum, some of which stemmed from research on a specific aspect of identity development, and others which were designed with a more general sense of self-expression in mind. This curriculum was then taught to a group of middle school students at an after-school program, meeting for an hour and a half each week for two months. During this time students completed four projects: emotion paintings, self-portraits, identity boxes, and Me/not me” collages. After the culmination of the class I set up a show of my student’s work in the Wardman Gym Gallery. In addition to describing the process of planning and executing my senior project, this paper will give a summary of the main theories and research on identity. Based on this theoretical background, I will discuss what I expected to see in my student’ artwork and any connections that I actually found between research on identity development and the artwork created by my students.
Recommended Citation
Nalbach, C. (2003). Identity and Self-Expression Through the Visual Arts. Retrieved from https://poetcommons.whittier.edu/scholars/426
Journal
Comments
WSP Major: Art Education