People in Education is seeking youth learning spaces, educators, classrooms and organizations to partner with our artist-in-residence program starting November, 2019.
Artist-in-Residence
PIE’s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program partners artists, educators and young people to make media that uncovers stories at the heart of the schooling experience. The basics:
Over four months, we explore a complex education issue centered on a yearly theme, resulting in a collaborative, digital media project.
The program seeks to embrace the complexity and intersectionality inherent in educational policy and reform.
It allows young people to discuss and showcase this complexity through our programmatic pillars of curiosity, connection and reflection, all while encouraging creativity through media making.
Last year, our making process evolved such that each media project shared a common theme. This year, we continue that model with outstanding Teaching Artist, Cyrah Dardas. She will work with each partner to develop media projects focused on the theme of school environment.
why school environment?
Media from summer 2019 with PIE and 482 Youth
This year’s theme was influenced by research from our recent summer partnership with 482 Youth, who explored the question, “What about school is inhumane?” They discovered four main themes from their research: food, teachers, class content and environment. The environment topic evoked conversation about the physical space in and around schools, to psychological and physical safety to questions of climate change and disability justice.
While funding for school facilities is debated and the effects of school closures continue to plague neighborhoods and communities, Detroit students attend school in environments that are woefully unsupportive of learning. And it doesn’t go by unnoticed by Detroit students.
This year we will make media that critically examines how school environment affects learning by:
Exploring: How does the school environment serve us and not serve us?
We will start by looking at how our schools are designed by auditing students’ schools to explore the design choices. Young people will examine the architecture itself, along with the lighting, color and more. We’ll also research the interaction between design and accessibility.
Researching: Determine a research question and dive in.
Once we have audited the space context, we will choose one aspect that we want to focus on and address. This phase includes research activities such as speaking to subject matter experts and looking at how other people innovate in our interest area.
Making: Collaborative, student-centered media making
Once we’ve learned about the environment and design, we’ll start dreaming and designing solutions to address issues we found in the learning phase. Young people will design the way they want their school environment to look and feel.
What we’re looking for in a partner*
Educators, youth learning spaces and organizations who:
Work with young people on art, technology, health, environment, school culture and/or issues in social justice.
Can work with a consistent group of students over the course of the four-month program (January-April).
Are open to a collaborative creating process between themselves, their students and PIE artists-in-residence.
* We are only seeking partners who are educators and/or representatives in youth learning spaces and organizations. We are not hiring teaching artists; Cyrah Dardas will be the sole artist-in-residence this year.
apply to become an AIR partner
If you’re interested in becoming an AIR partner, complete this form by Monday, November 4, 2019 to tell us more about yourself and your work. The form will take about ten minutes to fill, and we’ll follow up later in November with more details.