Iraqi-American tackles social justice and art
Mary Caton
Windsor Star
Amy Tesolin remembers being inspired as a high school student whenever Teachers for Global Awareness held an event.
Through this dedicated group of educators and activists, Tesolin discovered “all these social justice issues I wasn’t aware of and people who were passionate about these issues. It was an eye-opening experience.”
Eventually Tesolin became a teacher herself at Walkerville and together with Sandwich teacher Deanna Fougere, they revived the TGA program 10 years ago.
Primarily working with high school students in forums hosted by the University of Windsor, Tesolin and Fougere decided to try a community outreach which resulted in Saturday’s workshop on social justice and art held at the Art Gallery of Windsor.
“We thought we’d like to branch out a little more into the community,” Fougere said. “It’s a nice fit to do something on social justice and art.”
With an exhibit by Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal as the backdrop, approximately 20 participants examined how art can connect with activism and searched for different avenues to engage youth in social justice art projects.
Bilal’s exhibit highlights the cultural destruction suffered in war-torn Iraq. His piece entitled 168:01 is a long white bookcase containing 1,000 empty white books among a scattering of actual literary works. During the invasion of 2003, the Iraq College of Fine Arts at the University of Bagdad lost 70,000 books that were reduced to a pile of ashes. That loss was the inspiration for Bilal’s “austere library.”
The workshop’s theme “Ashes Transformed: Social Justice Through Art” appealed to Emily Carruthers, who heads the art department at Westview Freedom Academy.
“I’m interested in using art to bring about social issues,” said Carruthers.
Several of her Westview students did an environmentally themed community mural on the wall of a Tecumseh Rd. furniture store last spring as part of the Windsor Police Service’s Tag-Out graffiti campaign.
“All the students chose a piece of nature that was important to them,” Carruthers said.
Before the workshop studied different examples of activist art throughout the city, the gathering took in a traditional opening ceremony by Theresa Sims from Native Women of Windsor.
Curator Srimoyee Mitra also spoke about the Bilal exhibit.
“We were approached by Teachers for Global Awareness because they were really interested in this exhibition,” Mitra said. “We developed the project together and the exhibition became a platform to think about social justice.”
Tesolin hopes Saturday’s event fosters continued discussion either online or at future events.
Source: windsorstar.com