Art Action for Social Change: Kids on the Hill

Art Action for Social Change is art that is made collaboratively by a group that is often underrepresented in society. The process is a revolutionary act and the product gives voice to marginalized perspectives through art’s creative and flexible amplifier. This kind of art making is different from being an art teacher, where the emphasis is often on artistic skill building. This is a creative learning and exploration process that strives to embolden community members to articulate their point of view on issues that matter to them, to raise awareness in others and to inspire new action.

In 1997, Kids on the Hill was formed and began working with a Baltimore community in this way. Over time, pedagogy has been developed to describe how this process works so that our program could be replicated and that other community artists might find utility in it.

The pedagogy is driven by a theory of change that has three parts: Experiential Education, Art Action and Civic Engagement. Each component describes a philosophy that will guide a group of people to deeply explore the issues, define their perspectives and create a process and product that impacts others. We will explore how each component functions and is implemented, but before we begin it is important to mention that there is groundwork and ongoing work that needs to be explored for a project to be successful. Because making art in a community is not a traditional academic construct, the role of the “teacher” must first be examined.

As a teacher or facilitator, no matter what culture, race, gender, social class or level of experience you have, must first explore yourself: What are your assumptions about the group and the topics you’ll explore? What is your sense of your power and authority within the context of the community? How do your own identities impact you? All of us bring our experiences with us to a project but having issues that are unexamined can be a huge challenge. In general, this work will challenge your whiteness, your blackness, your boundary setting, your privilege, your education and more. When this manifests as a teacher who feels so guilty about privilege that s/he is unable to assert authority when needed, or a teacher who talks and tells more than s/he asks and listens, the teaching process can be impeded. There is no systematic way to examine yourself, but being open to the lessons that come to you through the work and finding support when needed is essential.

Phase 1: Experiential Education

The first phase of an Art Action for Social Change project is Experiential Education. This is a tenet of many progressive education theories and it allows students to have an active experience of new information and to participate in their own learning. While traditional education involves a teacher who imparts information and an analysis of that information, Experiential Education aims to ensure that: 1. participants, not the teacher, are at the center of their learning, 2. that the topics are driven by youth questions, 3. that the class is structured around discussion and 4. that there are learning experiences such as trips, games, meetings, interviews and activities created to explore and reinforce information. By the end of this phase, students should deeply understand an issue and the multiple perspectives surrounding it and be able to articulate these perspectives as well as their own analyses.

Several years ago we were given funds by the police department to do crime prevention work with teens. Generally, we like to work on issues that youth choose on their own, but often we have to take on projects in response to the funding available. Crime prevention initially seemed like a particularly challenging issue for young people. Most inner-city young people do not like police, and police, of course, are critical to most strategies currently used to prevent crime. One requirement of the grant was to go to the “crime and safety” meeting in the community and to contribute to initiatives that adults were already working on. About five young people went to the first meeting. Adults talked about the drug problem and complained about how ineffective the police were. Their primary strategy appeared to be to get increased police presence in the neighborhood. Throughout the meeting, the young people looked nervously at each other but didn’t say a word. They knew a lot of the drug dealers in our neighborhood and they felt uncomfortable being part of a group that was talking about locking them up. The meeting ended and as I drove the kids home I heard them whispering. I coaxed them to speak up and they admitted that they didn’t want to be a part of locking people up. They felt that people dealing were just trying to make a little money and that locking them up wouldn’t do anything to stop the problem.

The next day, this group reported what they’d heard to the rest of their peers and as a group they discussed the following questions: Why do people sell drugs? Why is there crime? What would we do about crime if we were in charge? Why do you think adults don’t think the way young people do? Young people discussed how drug dealers are a lot of times supporting their families, how incarceration doesn’t make them stop, how hard it is to finish school and make it when you have no money. Their point was that selling drugs comes from an economic need and as long as there was a way to make money, incarceration wasn’t going to stop drug dealing. So, our issue became: How do we ourselves learn more about these issues so we can make a better argument and how do we communicate our perspective to our adult neighbors. To do their research, they decided that they wanted to talk to a wide variety of people who play a role in drug crime. They decided to interview a police officer, a drug dealer, a former drug user, the health commissioner, a lawyer, a politician, a community leader and a woman whose son was incarcerated for selling drugs, to try to get a variety of angles on the topic. They also returned to the crime-and-safety committee meetings and became vocal participants in the conversation, encouraging the adults present to understand a new perspective on the issues.

Phase 2: Art Action

The second phase of a project is Art Action. This is when the group takes the issue that they’ve explored and figures out a way to use art as a way to express their perspective on the topic. The art-making process helps to solidify the knowledge they’ve gained, think about who they want to impact with their art, what medium will best reach the intended audience and what message is going to be most powerful. Once these elements have been explored, the group begins the art-making process. There is then some skill building around artistic processes that will be used. If it’s photography, you would want to look at other artists work, experiment with the camera, plan the content of the pictures, critique preliminary ideas and then finally fabricate the piece. The final product may be a mural, a bumper sticker, a poster, a video or outdoor sculpture. No matter what the product, the content will be rich and, if time is taken to develop artistic skills, the final product can also have a lot of artistic integrity that will keep it from being marginalized.

After all their interviews, young people themselves began to see new perspectives. They understood the challenges of being a police officer, they learned how much money a drug dealer makes, they thought about legalization and the necessity for locking up violent criminals and ultimately they formed a new and more informed perspective. They arrived at the conclusion that there is no fast way of eliminating drugs and crime and that one must address the economic issues that lead to the existence of low-income neighborhoods, poor education and unemployment. Until society can change its focus from punishment to prevention, the most important thing that a community can do is to spend its energy strengthening the positives of a community rather then complaining about what the city or police should do. As a result, this group of teens, alongside the adult members of the crime-and-safety committee, created a billboard on a drug corner that promoted community unity. The handmade billboard read: “Get Together Reservoir Hill! Associate Communicate Participate. As young people painted the billboard, some of the drug dealers came over to watch. Much to the surprise of some of the adults, one of them even helped paint. On the same corner, the committee also boarded up three vacant buildings with youth artwork painted on them. This corner, which once was an eyesore, became a beautified and cared-about space that symbolized what is possible when people come together. Not only did we succeed in moving the drug dealing off that corner but, later that year and for the last four years, this billboard has been woven into a power-point presentation that is used by the neighborhood association at their annual meeting as they tout the accomplishments of the year’s work. This is significant because it shows the power of art not just to provide the makers with a satisfying process but also to provide inspiration and to shape a community’s message, identity and focus.

Phase 3: Civic Engagement

Shoot for a video by Kids on the Hill designed to train young people how to handle themselves around the police. Pictured: David Smith, Megan Sherman, Jordon Jones, James Trayham,Cheri Edmond, Carrie Everette. Photo by Valeska Populoh Click here to enlarge

The third phase is Civic Engagement. Civic Engagement is the process of teaching young people how to have influence in groups, organizations and/or government. Through the framework of Experiential Education and Art Action, Civic Engagement is about using the Art Action project and the perspective gained from the Experiential Education to make change. The assumption is that during the Experiential Education part of the project they’ve already chosen a great, heartfelt topic, and in the Art Action part of the project they defined who they are trying to make an impact on, and now have some product to help make that impact. In the Civic Engagement component the focus is on the strategy for making change. There are several components and lessons to learn as young people develop this strategy. They should first explore how they think change happens, think about what tactics they might use and then practice the leadership and communication skills needed to convey their message. This component may consist of a show of their work, a protest, a presentation made to a target audience or a celebration or any other method that students can think of to spread the word about their vision.

The other art project that was created in response to the crime-prevention work was a video. Young people took all the footage from the interviews they conducted and edited it into a documentary that helped others see the varied perspectives that they experienced through their research. In addition to submitting and getting their video into festivals, they showed their project at different meetings throughout the city. They presented at a home for runaway boys, at an organization focusing on a regional response to the drug problem, at our very own community-association meeting and at several other citywide events. Each time they presented, they had a chance to facilitate a conversation, hear people’s response to their work and feel a sense of pride as they saw that their work was moving and valuable to others.

Conclusions

For art teachers that are working in low-income communities, making art that is socially engaged is a powerful and transformative experience for the instructor, the young people and their communities. Art making in any form allows young people to experience nonacademic ways of learning, to develop creativity, confidence and new skills. Making art for social change takes all these ideas about how art benefits the individual and adds a component. Specifically, making art with a social issue at the core both allows young people to become change makers and a community to be changed.

Art made by underrepresented young people is vital. We live in a society that leaves economically disadvantaged people and people of color without a voice. They are not represented in museums, in politics nor in the economic power structure. The result is a society that does not understand or embrace diverse experiences and, as a result, forms one-sided and inherently limited concepts of the world. Without understanding an issue, we are left with limited solutions to problems that we face.

The most effective way for society to change is to include people that are systematically excluded in problem solving. Art (including media) is the most powerful way to make new voices accessible and palatable to mainstream society. Most people of privilege can understand a performance about police brutality more than witnessing a person resisting arrest. Both scenarios may be equal acts of defiance but it is a unique ability of art to create a lens through which we can see the issues and appreciate and identify with the strengths of a culture while also being exposed to the challenges that another perspective poses. It is this pathway to learning and experiencing something new that enables us as a society to find new solutions to old problems.

This essay is part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2008, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art.  The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Ron Bechet, Xavier University of Louisiana; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Sonia Mañjon, California College of the Arts; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; and Stephani Woodson, Arizona State University.

Rebecca Yenawine is founder and co-director of Kids on the Hill, where she is in charge of art and curriculum. In addition to teaching Baltimore teenagers, she is adjunct faculty in the Masters of Community Arts Program at the Maryland Institute of Art.

Mark Carter, MSW, is co-director of Kids on the Hill, where he is in charge of operations and advancement. He is most often recruited by boards of directors and leaders of organizations to: facilitate or lead complex and comprehensive change processes (evolving or engineering new mission, goals, theory of change, outputs, branding/marketing, etc.); develop and launch new initiatives; and resolve challenging issues impeding organizational growth, development, solvency and sustainability.

Original CAN/API publication: August 2008