LESSONS AND PROJECTS

COUNTER CURRICULUM: SHIFTING THE NARRATIVE

Students will explore themes of representation and narrative, and its relationship to colonization within the museum context. Through an exploration of artworks, videos, and gallery activities, students will create reflective artworks around these themes.

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Location: An encyclopedic museum in the United States of America

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Subject Area: Visual Art, History 

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Age group: High School, 9-12th. Potential for multigenerational learning. 

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Unit Focus/Overview:

Shifting the Narrative is a unit that will give students the opportunity to explore representation and how it is related to colonization within the museum context. As institutions, museums claim to be spaces that care for a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural,and  historical importance - but whose history is being told? Is it accurate? How do these stories affect our everyday life? How are these concepts integrated in our daily lives? Students will have a safe space to engage in dialogues surrounding identity, race, power dynamics, and narratives. 

Section 1: What is the story of an object or artwork?  
     Lesson 1: Students will participate in two different gallery activities following an introduction to Fred Wilson's Mining the Museum: students bring in an object from home that is of deep personal significance. Without sharing the significance,  they will swap objects with another student and they will then begin to give meaning to the object only based on what they see, with no contextual information. The second activity consists of a gallery exploration in which students compare how objects are displayed in different galleries, the contextual information provided on the objects, and any patterns in representation/lack of representation.  

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Link to full curriculum outline below: