The power of art:
Increasing cultural consciousness through an online global art class
Students from the two countries participated in interactive learning activities to create an art project that reflects specific global issues and multiple cultures. An essential component of the project was a virtually collaborative art-making activity designed to promote students’ multicultural consciousness and global awareness while developing their artistic abilities. Upon completion, most students reported that this workshop broke their stereotypes and pre-assumptions, promoted a higher level of understanding and critical thinking about global issues, and enhanced global views and multicultural awareness. They enjoyed learning different viewpoints and art-making techniques from other countries and pointed out that this workshop enlivened cross-cultural interaction, promoted cultural diversity and inclusion, and facilitated broader international perspectives.
全球春节口罩戴. Happy New Year, Happy Everyday created by Lucy (U.S.) and Xuan Yi (China), combines U.S. and Chinese cultures by using patterns with symbolic values.
The work illustrates how people celebrate the New Year festival in China and the U.S. to embody the theme of multicultural reunion. The students use this artwork to express a unity captured in a quote by Xuan Yi, that “the world is interconnected today more than ever before. No matter which country people come from, they are all citizens in the global village. So it is just like they are family members of Earth.” Since the workshop was conducted after the U.S. Thanksgiving and before the Asian Lunar New Year, the students were inspired the U.S. and Chinese end-of-year celebrations. They found that in both cultures, many people gather with their families. They combined the two festivals to imagine what a multicultural family reunion might look like.
The whole artwork was in the style of ancient Asian paintings and included U.S. and Asian elements. The title on the top left is written in English and Chinese, both designed in penmanship style. In this work, three Asian ladies and Captain Marvel (a character from a popular superhero movie) sit together to celebrate the New Year festival. They are all wearing masks to express how people united during the pandemic. These figures represent an intersection of the past and the future. For example, the ancient figures represent people from the past and Captain Marvel represents those from the future. Students aimed to imply that people from the two countries have always been interconnected from the past to the future.
Elements included in the art represent a long history of economic and trade exchanges. In the artwork, the Chinese figures take care of their babies, prepare food, and watch a baby play with the cats. Students expressed fulfilled and joyful moments in the holiday. More details of Chinese culture are also presented in the painting, such as dumplings on the dining table, which is a traditional food for the Lunar New Year festival. Red packets are gifts given to young children from elders during holidays or special occasions to express their best wishes for them in the new year. Some U.S. cultural elements include potato chips, a popular snack in the U.S., and pet clothing with a Walmart logo to represent consumerism. The students also pointed out that the baby holding an iPhone reflects the current obsession with iPhones among kids in both China and the U.S.
The students hoped to express that:
Along with globalization, people's lives are interconnected today and share in global economies, technology, cultures, and global issues such as public health. Although people are born and live in different countries and have diverse cultural backgrounds, they are all citizens of the global village. The right thing to do is to love and help each other, just like what you do to your family, and stay united to fight for global issues. (Xuan Yi)
This work of art was created by Huang (China) and Tom (U.S.). They titled their image 背弃, To Turn Your Back.
Tom explained the theme of this work of art as “… [mutual] share of neglect, the opposite of love. And it deals with marine pollution. As human beings, we turn our back to the ocean, and we need to improve it.”
The art project uses hand drawing, Illustrator, and Photoshop mixed media. In the artwork, a couple sits back-to-back on a beach to represent neglecting and forgetting each other. The background is the big city's outline, representing modern human society and economic development.
The students drew the ocean in dark colors at the bottom half of the work. Sea animals are dying and eating trash thrown into the ocean by humans. Huang used the traditional Chinese ink wash painting to express petroleum in the ocean. This metaphor implies people’s attitudes regarding marine pollution. People are insensitive, turn their back on the sea, and lack interest and care about the natural environmental deterioration. The painting, depicted using black and white colors, gives viewers an intense feeling. The students use this artwork to get people to pay attention to ocean pollution and take action immediately to save and protect the ocean from worsening.
This work of art, 自然驱动世界. Nature Drives Our World, was designed by Nina (U.S.) and Ning (China). The theme is deforestation. This work reveals the relationship between nature and economic development. Ning, a major in graphic design, stated about the painting,
The idea we try to convey is that the economy develops so fast in the current world without concerning the health of nature and the Earth. Without nature, people cannot live. So, as humans, we need to protect the natural environment while developing the economy.
Ning worked with Nina, who is a major in art and visual culture education. Nina started the project with paper-based 3d models to represent the buildings in the city. Together, they created 3D models using the computer programs Illustrator and Blender to complete this artwork.
Nina and Ning were inspired by the artwork, Avalanche by WIND, by Alexandre Hogue (1891-1994), which they learned about in during Farrar’s presentation in the first workshop. Avalanche by WIND depicts how nature and the city erode each other. Similarly, big cities in the U.S. and China face the loss of natural space. Cities are filled with skyscrapers, highways, and heavy traffic. People are enthusiastic about building contemporary architecture to develop the economy and forget to leave natural spaces for people to get fresh air.
The students designed the whole work of art to resemble a computer central processing unit (CPU). They interpreted the CPU to represent the relationship between nature and the development of social-economic policies. A CPU is the brain of a computer, containing all the circuitry needed to process tasks such as basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, input, storing data, and output operations. If the CPU is broken, the whole computer will be locked down. The CPU design illustrates how important a natural environment is in the city, just as the CPU is imperative to running a whole computer.
In the detail of自然驱动世界, Nature Drives Our World, the buildings are designed in white colors and have sharp square shapes, representing the non-living atmosphere. The students added heavy smog on top of the composition to represent air pollution in big cities. In the middle ground, the park is green, which emits some light pillars everywhere, representing that nature delivers energy to all the people.
我们在一起. We are in this together (Figure 6) by Annie（U.S.) and Ying(China), focusing on climate change and air pollution.
Annie explained about the piece,
We discussed how different activist issues affect everyone. We did this by having only one planet to imply that environmental deterioration leads to climate change. The idea we try to convey is that unless all countries come together, they have these different laws and regulations about climate change. Otherwise, we cannot make as much difference.
On the left of the artwork is a photo of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and on the right is a photo of Tucson, Arizona. In addition, the titles of policies in different countries are listed. On the left side, the policies are: “Prevention First,” “Who Pollutes, Who Controls,” and “Strengthen the Environmental Management.” On the right side are “The Clean Air Act,” “Executive Order 13693,” and “The Clean Power Plan.” Each is policies China and the U.S. have implemented to address climate change. Overlaying the images is a handshake logo shaped like a heart to convey that climate change is not an issue for a single country. It is a global issue. Different countries should cooperate with each other.
The artworks created by students illustrate how an art-based project in a collaborative global art workshop can be a powerful way to engender intercultural dialogue, empathy, and compassion and engage students in critical thinking about diversity, assumptions, and global issues. Creating a work of art allowed students to develop their worldwide vision and personal voice in a visual language that allowed enormous divergence and multicultural responses.
Through this global art class, we realized the potential of a museum distance program and virtual classrooms, which can connect the world in synchronous and asynchronous interactions and deliver learning resources to a broader array of students without the limitations of geography and culture. In addition, collaborating with culturally different peers can increase students’ self-confidence and significantly promote interest in other cultures. Students were not biased against a different culture and were enthusiastic about exchanging cultural information with peers.
The world is interconnected more today than ever by global issues revolving around cultural and social understanding. Students and teachers must be encouraged to resist the limitations of their worldviews by challenging the beliefs and assumptions embedded in their thinking. Increasing cultural awareness through art can positively affect students' perspectives. Learning and making art can help people critically examine their existing assumptions, be more open-minded to all types of knowledge, and gain a deeper understanding of heritages and cultures worldwide.