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• Students will research and explore the effects and significance of migration, using the viewpoints of a range of contemporary artists. • Students will create an oral history, collecting stories of immigration or migration to the United States from their own experience or that of family and friends.
Art:21 Web Site • Home Visits – Pepón Osorio interview & clip • El Chandelier - Pepón Osorio art work • Seoul Home/L.A. Home... – Do-Ho Suh interview & clip • Islam and Miniature Painting – Shahzia Sikander interview & clip • Thinking in Clay – Gabriel Orozco interview & clip • The Melodrama of Gone with the Wind – Kara Walker interview & clip Additional Web Sites • http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/1minute.html A guide to conducting an oral history and oral history interview • http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/oral/offsite.html Columbia University oral history research office • http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam008.html African-American migration mosaic from the Library of Congress • http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/98/migrate/essay.html Immigration/migration essay from the Library of Congress Classroom Materials • recording equipment: • tape or MD recorders • video camera • writing notepads
• What makes up the culture of the United States today? • What effects do migration and immigration have on the beliefs, practices, and traditions of individuals and groups? • How has the cultural make-up of the U.S. changed over time? What factors have contributed to these changes? • How do large migrations change countries? • What forces shape how individuals and groups respond to new environments, whether they assimilate, remain separate, prosper, or suffer? • How do contemporary artists represent the current environment of global exchange, trade, and travel?
Looking at Contemporary Artists Have students look at the video segments for the artists Gabriel Orozco, Do-Ho Suh, Shahzia Sikander, Pepón Osorio, and Kara Walker. Each of these artists discusses issues of home, dislocation, and travel in their work, either addressing the place they were born or their connections to the crafts or techniques from a particular aspect of their culture. Walker moved from California to Georgia as a child while Do-Ho Suh came from Korea to the United States as an adult to pursue his education. Have students compare and contrast the effects of dislocation in Kara Walker’s work with Do-Ho Suh’s. Have students compare Do-Ho Suh’s relationship to travel with Gabriel Orozco’s. How are Suh’s and Orozco’s travels reflected in their work? How do these artists merge different cultural and geographic influences in their work? (Time: One to two 45 minute sessions) Leaving Home – An Oral History Project Have students collect responses from friends and family who have relocated from a home in another area of the U.S. or from another country. Use the one-minute guide provided at U.C. Berkeley to teach students how to conduct an oral history interview. Brainstorm interview questions. For example, why did you leave your home? How did you feel about leaving? Did you take anything with you? What did you take? What do you remember about your hometown or home country? What do you miss about your hometown or home country? Decide how much time will be spent on the project and assign a feasible number of persons for each student to interview (perhaps each student only does one in-depth interview). Explain the role of primary documents in the writing of history, and discuss the value of interviewing people whose experiences would not be written down otherwise. Provide time for students to do background research on their persons’ place of origin before conducting the interview. Plot places of origin on a map of the world before interviews are done; have students share the stories they learned after talking with interviewees about their experiences of leaving home. The same can be done before and after watching video clips on the artists featured in this lesson. Practical things to consider: • Do students have access to recording equipment? If not, consider having them do informal interviews and take notes by hand. • Transcribing a recorded interview is a tedious task. Make sure students have enough time to do this essential part of the project. • Bringing a photograph to an interview often helps trigger memories and sensory responses. Ethical considerations: • How much background research should be done about someone’s country of origin ahead of time? • How much of a transcribed interview should be edited? • What is the power relationship between the researcher and the subject? Presentation: Consider the different forms that oral histories can take. What form would best serve the stories that students have collected? How will they represent both their voice and the voice of their subject in their presentation? Will the presentation take a written form, a visual form, or a combination of both? Have students consider different forms of presentation such as a screenplay, a video, a comic book, a short story, an oral reading, a newspaper article, etc. (Time: Five 45 minute sessions to long-term project)
• Have students articulated an understanding of how different artists have represented the current environment of global exchange, trade, and travel? • Have students generated thought-provoking interview questions? • Have students conducted an oral history interview on the assigned topic? • Have students made a written record of the interview? • Have students articulated a range of responses to the question of what makes a home? • Have students related the experiences of individuals to the larger phenomena of migration and immigration? Find out how this lesson plan correlates to your state's education standards! On PBS TeacherSource do a search for "Art in the 21st Century" and click on the Standards Match icon.
Create an oral history archive for the school that future students can use for research. Index entries according to research topics and have each successive class add to the archive through their own oral history projects. Other lessons that could extend this lesson into a longer course of study include: Understanding Home Model Homes Personal Stories in the Public Honoring Heroes and History Wartime Voices Did you use this lesson or generate your own activities based on ideas inspired by the lesson? Submit student art work, new lesson plans, and your comments to Art:21 and have them posted on the site. Help the Online Lesson Library grow!
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