Create
Elementary
dimensional modeling of an original design for an
“invention for change.” Like Ukeles, students might
focus on service workers who are often taken for
granted, and like Wodiczko, students might interview
those workers, asking them what might make their
lives better.
Encourage students to work in design teams to
decide upon an issue or problem to consider, do some
research about the problem (which might include
interviewing people associated with it), brainstorm
ideas for addressing the issue or problem, sketch plans,
and create a prototype for their invention. Focusing
upon issues faced by single parents working away from
home, for example, students might create a design for a
robot or other device that could help monitor children.
Middle School
Have students create whimsical creatures or “flying
machines” to symbolically carry away the problems
that some people face—hunger, loss, poverty, neglect,
abuse. Students should write the problem on a strip
of paper and creatively attach it to the artwork. For
example, a student might create a bird carrying a slip
of paper in its mouth with the word “bullying” written
on it.
Create a “skournal” (a combination
sketchbook and journal) about people for
whom they have compassion, and sketch
ideas for their flying sculptures. Ask them
to consider some problems or issues that
people encounter. Remind them that Ukeles thought about people who have been
ignored or taken for granted. Kollwitz and
Wodiczko thought about people living in
poverty, while Siqueiros remembered people who fought against political oppression.
CREDITS
Developed by the Kutztown University Looking and
Learning Team, with Dr. Marilyn Stewart and graduate
students Amy Ahn, Zoe DeHart, Amanda Deibert, Cassie
Langan, Jennifer Low, Ellen Pados, and Katherine Schneider.
Lead author, Ellen Pados, teaches art at Harrison Morton
Middle School in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Social Mirror, 1983. Mirror-covered sanitation truck.
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.
High School
Allow Wodiczko’s Homeless Vehicle to
serve as the inspiration for students’ own
two-dimensional drafting and three-
Resources
Art: 21, Season 5: Compassion
www.pbs.org/art21/series/seasonfive/compassion.php
Käthe Kollwitz at Gallerie St. Etienne
www.gseart.com/artists.asp?ArtistID=67
David Alfaro Siqueiros, National Gallery of Art
www.nga.gov/education/classroom/self_portraits/bio_siqueiros.shtm
Mierle Ukeles, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
www.feldmangallery.com
Krzysztof Wodiczko at Art: 21, Season 3: Power
www.pbs.org/art21/series/seasonthree/power.html
Suzy Becker, Kids Make It Better
www.suzybecker.com/index.php?page=about&family=books
Additional Digital Images
Visit the Davis Art
Images website for
ten additional fine-art
digital images to support
the concepts discussed in
Looking and Leaning.
www.davisartimages.com/lookingandlearning
Krzysztof Wodiczko, The Hiroshima
Projection, public project at the A-Bomb
Dome, Hiroshima, Japan, August 7–8 1999.
Courtesy the Artist and Galerie LeLong,
Ne w York.
