Dipti Desai

Imaging Difference: The Politics of Representation in Multicultural Art Education.

This paper examines the notion of “accurate” and “authentic” representations of culture in multicultural art education discourses. Drawing on feminism and neo-Marxist analyses of culture, I call into question the taken for granted view that replacing biased and stereotypic representations with purported accurate and authentic representations will fix misunderstandings regarding nonwhite people and their cultures. The analysis focuses specifically on the ways authentic and accurate representations are constructed in two discursive sites in multiculturalism: museums and aesthetics. Based on my understanding of representations role in shaping our understanding of other cultures and its direct connection to issues of power and dominance, I call for an inclusion of a politics of location and positionality in relation to multiculturalism. Implications for teaching multicultural art education are briefly outlined.

The Ethnographic Move in Contemporary Art: What does it mean for Art Education

The recent shift in contemporary art of artists using ethnography as an integral component in their artistic practice opens a range of issues regarding the relationship between experience in the field, interpretation, and artistic representation. Through a focused investigation of site-specific art, I discuss the problems with “pseudo-ethnography” and the possibilities of alternative models of artist as ethnographers. I read the artworks of three women artists who I argue provide another model of artist as ethnographer, one that represents experience as relationally constituted and a resource for critical reflection. Contemplating the relationship between art and ethnography, I explore its implications for art education.

Imagining Otherwise: Connecting the Arts and Social Justice to Envision and Act for Change: Special Issue Introduction

Social justice practices at their best should also awaken our senses and the ability to imagine alternatives that can sustain the collective work necessary to challenge entrenched patterns and institutions and build a different world. Our definition of social justice requires that as much as we use our critical faculties to grasp the complex and invidious ways that systems of oppression operate, we also need to engage aesthetic and sensory capacities so as to create and experiment with alternative possibilities—imagining what could otherwise be. As several scholars suggest (Ellsworth, 2005; Greene, 1995; hooks, 1994; Mouffe, 2007; Ranciere, 2008), the arts are a particularly potent way to activate imagination and a broader understanding of injustice, its consequences, and the range of alternative possibilities. Thus, we argue that the arts ought to be a critical component of social justice practice.

Places to Go: Challenges to Multicultural Art Education in a Global Economy

This article examines the relationship between globalization and postmodern multicultural art education. The questions that drive my investigation are: What is the role of postmodern multiculturalism in this current phase of globalization and what challenges does globalization pose for multiculturalism? I explore the shifts in the field of art that have occurred due to globalization and then discuss their implications for postmodern art education.

Imagining Justice in Times of Perpetual War: Notes for the Classroom

Abstract Today we learn about terrorism and immigration projected through the lens of justice largely from visual sites of public pedagogy (i.e., television, Internet, films, etc.). Given the pervasive and persuasive agenda of public pedagogy, schools have to rethink what it means to educate students in a visual age where new modes of information and cultural production dominate how knowledge is shaped and circulated. This paper explores the ways justice is represented in other sites of visuality such as contemporary art practices by focusing on two interconnected sites: incarceration and immigration. These two sites under neo-liberal capitalism and increased militarization of our society are forging new alliances of state sanctioned injustices, where people of color and the working class are paying the highest price. Public pedagogy and educational practices in schools—through the enforcement of the zero tolerance policy—have contributed to the continued criminalization of youth and the more recent criminalization of immigrants. Drawing on the work of contemporary artists, I argue that this criminalization feeds into the fastest growing industry in the U.S., the prison industrial complex and more recently the immigration industrial complex, both of which are racialized and gendered forms of state sanctioned justice.

Unframing immigration: Looking through the educational space of contemporary art

This article uses the lens of contemporary visual art as a counternarrative to explore the racialization of immigration in the United States and its relationship to education. Drawing on critical race theory, I argue that today several artists use their artistic practice to intervene strategically in the immigration debates. These artistic interventions are pedagogical because they open spaces for students to address the topic of immigration in both secondary schools and universities. As pedagogical sites, these art practices precipitate debate, dissent, and dialogue about immigration in the United States, generating another avenue for civic engagement, which is a crucial component of democracy.

Social Justice and the Arts

This document is designed to provide a concise, but representative sampling of the many arts programs, projects, networks, and individuals involved in creative, progressive change in their diverse communities. The purpose of this examination is to provide information to enhance the creative work of the Open Buffalo Arts Network as the initiative moves forward. Not meant as an exhaustive list of relevant places to study, this report represents a variety of small and large organizations that are currently addressing issues of justice and opportunity, worker equity, and high road economic development, and similar topics. The programs or policy organizations in this document are arranged by listing first those potentially the most useful to Open Buffalo or like-minded organizations. However, all the programs listed have interest as creative, purposeful, and sometimes “out of the box” ways to advance social justice and the arts.