Finding Art''s Place

"Finding Art's Place" showcases three artistic/educational experiments located outside of school settings. Author Nicholas Paley presents the texts, voices, and teaching and learning practices of Tim Rollins + K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) and their artistic/literary workshop for urban youth in New York's South Bronx; the video work of Sadie Benning, the adolescent filmmaker who has won critical acclaim for her sensitive self-explorations of her lesbian sexuality; and the photographic efforts of Jim Hubbard, who shares his expertise with homeless and urban children in Washington, D.C., through his organization, The Shooting Back Education and Media Center.
"Finding Art's Place" explores the many ways education occurs in each of the these experiments. Allowing the children and young adults, their mentors, and their work to speak for themselves about their educational experiences, Paley brings forward multiple standpoints on educational methodologies and materials, identity, literacy, and the configurations of art in the lives of urban youth. Central to all three experiments is the construction of representations and self-representations of children and young adults struggling with the realities of cultural production in "asymmetrical" educational spaces in order to flourish academically, artistically, and psychically.
Mindful to avoid consolidating the status of the projects within any single language or theoretical system, "Finding Art's Place" experiments with discursive and non-discursive modes of address that slant away from official narratives of educational power. The volume's juxtaposition of voices, analyses, interviews, and visual/textual documentation is produced to reflect the complex, differential process of imaginative and cultural production and to portray students as active agents in their own education.
The introduction and concluding chapters link the projects to larger educational issues of power, pedagogy, and the meaning of literacy in American society. Venturing across critical boundaries and disciplined systems of educational discourse, "Finding Art's Place" offers a deeply optimistic portrait of learning grounded in artistic practices and the multiple circumstances in which it can take place.