What's Happening

What’s Happening as a title functions as a greeting, a question and a reference point for the new kind of art practices integrated into Art in General’s school collaborations.

“What’s happening” as a greeting opens a conversation. Social movement is dictated by dialogue, and our cultural landscape cannot develop without an exchange that includes young people. A true democracy allows for freedom of speech; an effective democracy offers the tools to broadcast a range of developing ideas. When our leaders merely gesture at democracy and prioritize profit-making corporations it is essential to create public forums that provide young people access to hands-on activities as an entry point into critical discourse about the world. As a metaphor for political disenfranchisement, Eighth grade ESL and Theater students provided free haircuts for adults as part of Haircuts by Children, a performance art collaboration with Art in General’s residency artist, Darren O’Donnell. Students then created their own situations through multidisciplinary art forms directly inspired by early happenings.

“What’s happening” is an important phrase when surveying current events. For example after uncovering the death toll of the genocide in Darfur, Human Rights students asked “What’s happening in Sudan?” and created a memorial in the spirit of peace flags.

Equally as important are the deliberations of students who show us visually what’s happening in their lives. English eighth graders created comic books that provide insight to the young artists’ struggles, imagination and interests; Communication students represented their autobiographical poems through the creation of sculptures and casts; and tenth grade Design students fabricated a school store on wheels to showcase student produced work.

Visual representation is also important when understanding new and complex concepts. As demonstrated by the MS 131 sixth grade math class who visually denoted a portion of a whole through graphic representations of fractions.

What’s Happening is curated by the Art in General Education Department with Sophie Landres and salutes the collective voices from this year’s annual education exhibit.

The Art in General Arts in Education program combines New York City public school curricula with contemporary art practices. Participating teaching artists and classroom teachers collaboratively create lesson plans that enrich current curricula and integrate the concepts and techniques of exhibiting artists at Art in General, as well as the ideas, questions, needs, and experiences of the students served. Throughout the school year young people are exposed to unconventional art practices and given the materials and guidance to make their own original artwork. What’s Happening is the culmination of the program, and showcases the creative and innovative works the students have produced over the school year.