Alison Kennedy CE Proposal

Alison Kennedy CE Proposal

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  PROJECT PROPOSAL Identity Exploration: ZineWorkshops for LGBTQ+ Youth Alison Kennedy Kent State University
 
 
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  Table of Contents I.Introduction ……………………………………………….. 3 II. Needs ……………………………………………………… 4 III. Objectives ………………………………………………… 5 IV. Timetable …………………………………………………. 5 V. Resources …………………………………………………. 6 !2
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  1. Introduction My nameis Alison Kennedy, and I am a Masters candidate in Kent State University’s Master of Library and Information Science Program, focusing on Museum Studies. I’ve always been interested in museums, but I think I can pinpoint my love of them to a Camp Sunshine overnight trip to SciTrek in Atlanta in 1999. Camp Sunshine provides year-round programming and summer camp to kids with cancer and their families. Getting to spend the night with my friends at the science museum was an experience I’ve never forgotten. The more time I’ve spent in the Kent State Program and the more classes I’ve taken, the more I’ve become interested in museum visitors. I am particularly interested in the ways that museums communicate with their visitors. Every aspect of museums communicates to visitors: marketing, exhibit design, programming, everything. I want to work to create true inclusion in every aspect of museums. I want to create museums in which everyone can see themselves represented. In September, I attended MuseumNext, a conference for forward-thinking museum professionals. At this conference, I got to hear presentations such as “Expanding our Narratives with LGBT Interpretation,” “Mining the Digital Landscape: Engaging Communities of Color,” and Nina Simon’s keynote, “Fighting For Inclusion.” Nina opened her keynote by saying, “Inclusion is fundamentally a political, activist act; we are political agents.” As someone who came to the museum world from the social justice and women’s & gender studies world, this sentiment resonated deeply with me. This is the kind of work I want to do. It was at MuseumNext that I met Amanda Potter, Educator for Public and University Programs at the Wexner Center for the Arts. We met at one of the conference evening programs, and she told me about the Wex’s collaborative work with Kaleidoscope Youth Center. I was excited to hear that Kaleidoscope’s OtherProm is held at the Wexner Center every year. OtherProm was my favorite event when I was on the board of Stonewall’s Fusion event, and I’m excited to hear that Kaleidoscope hosts a similar event. While I did not live in Columbus as a teenager and therefore did not ever visit Kaleidoscope, I did visit a similar center in Atlanta when I was in high school. I remember being welcomed with open arms, and as a queer teenager, this was a comforting feeling. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to make a point of giving back to the organizations that helped me growing up. Since I no longer live in Atlanta, I want to find a way to give back to the queer community in Columbus. That’s where my culminating experience project comes in. !3
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  2. Needs The HumanRights Campaign’s 2015 recent survey of LGBT youth revealed that “4 in 10 LGBT youth (42%) say the community in which they live is not accepting of LGBT people.” GLSEN estimates that 90% of LGBT students hear anti-LGBT comments in school (End Domestic Abuse WI). According to data from a CDC study, “the percentage of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students (across sites) who did not go to school at least one day during the 30 days before the survey because of safety concerns ranged from 11% to 30% of gay and lesbian students and 12% to 25% of bisexual students” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). The Trevor Project (2015) estimates that “LGB youth are 4 times more likely, and questioning youth are 3 times more likely, to attempt suicide as their straight peers. … Nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt.” The National Coalition for the Homeless (2009) reports that “20% of homeless youth are LGBT.” Clearly, LGBTQIA+ youth need support. It is well documented that “To make the transition into adulthood, young people need and benefit from contact with high-resource adults in their communities. These contacts provide them with information, socialization, and access to the adult worlds they eventually need to join” (Benson, 1997; Eccles & Gootman, 2002) (as cited in Sullivan & Larson, 2010, p. 100). Queer youth in particular are vulnerable to missing these contacts, particularly youth who have become estranged from parents. Kaleidoscope fills some of the void here - I know that the few queer adults I met when I was a teenager were incredibly beneficial to my development. I can remember a particular high school English teacher who knew about my first girlfriend before anyone else - we’re still in contact now, and I’m 25! I love the idea of the museum world helping to play a role in the encouragement and development of queer youth. The more I’ve learned during my museum studies education, the more I’ve wanted to find ways to engage my museum work with my queer world. Museums can, and should, provide safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ youth. Contemporary art museums in particular provide opportunity for self-examination and reflection, as the issues that confronted by the artwork are often the same issues with which the teens themselves are grappling. !4
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  3. Objectives Csikzentmihalyi (1990)(as cited in Carpenter, 2005) writes, “When involved in expressive activity, we feel in touch with our real self” (p. 30). Rachel Hadland and Theodore Stickley conducted a study in 2010 examining the community art project and excluded teenagers: “the purpose of the project described in this article was to involve participants in a series of creative activities to give them a sense of belonging and offer opportunities for self-expression” (p. 20). This is what I aim to do with my Culminating Experience project. I want to run a weekly art workshop at Kaleidoscope. The art created through the semester will be turned into an exhibit at OtherProm in the spring, giving the kids throughout the semester a goal to strive towards as well as tangible evidence of their efforts. Inspired by Rachelle Lee Smith’s photography project “Queer Youth in Focus” and my own experience on the editorial staff of kate, Otterbein’s feminist zine, I plan to provide an opportunity for identity exploration through art and zine creation. Zines give artists of all varieties a chance to include their writing and art in the publication. Each week’s workshop session will focus creating content for the zine, as well as designing the individual pages. Pages chosen by workshop participants will be blown up into poster size prints for display at OtherProm, where printed zines will be available to take home. Zines find their home on the edges: outside the binary, outside the patriarchy, outside of the oppressive structures that threaten us all. Zines challenge the norms that we all struggle against. Zines are a place for identity exploration and examination. Created by hand, zines invite all participants to the table when it comes to design and creation. 4. Timetable Phase One will consist of planning on my end, including the acquisition of materials and preparation for workshops. Phase Two will consist of weekly workshops at Kaleidoscope, each spending time on content creation as well as zine design. Phase Three will include the creation of the physical zine, including photocopying and binding, the printing of large posters, and the installation of the poster exhibit. Description of Work Start and End Dates Phase One Planning and Organization October 25 - December 31, 2015 Phase Two Identity Exploration Workshops January 1 - May 30, 2016 Phase Three Exhibit at OtherProm May 27-30, 2016 !5
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  5. References Benway, N.D.(2010). Fine art programs, teens, and libraries: changing lives one program at a time. Young adult library services, 9(1), 28-30. Brownlee, H. (2003). Constructing youth engagement: an outline of benefits and shortcomings. Teaching artists journal, 1(2), 80-87. Carpenter, G. (2005). Awaken your agency with art. Parks & recreation, 40(4), 26-33. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). LGBT youth. Retrieved from: http:// www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm. Dawes, N.P. & Larson, R.W. (2011). How youth get engaged: grounded-theory research on motivational development in organized youth programs. Developmental psychology, 47(1), 259-269. DOI: 10.1037/a0020729. End Domestic Abuse WI. (n.d.). LGBT youth facts/statistics. Retrieved from: http:// www.endabusewi.org/sites/default/files/resources/ lgbt_youth_facts_and_stats.pdf. Hadland, R, & Stickley, T. (2010). Community art project for excluded teenagers. Mental health practice, 13(6), 18-23. Human Rights Campaign. (2015). Growing up LGBT in America. Retrieved from: http:// hrc-assets.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com//files/assets/resources/Growing- Up-LGBT-in-America_Report.pdf. National Coalition for the Homeless. (2009). LGBT homeless. Retrieved from: http:// www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/lgbtq.html Paris, D. (2010). Texting identities: Lessons for classrooms from multiethnic youth space. English Education, 42(3), 278–292. Smith, R.L. (2014). Queer youth in focus. Retrieved from: http://rachelleleesmith.com/ speakingout/. Sullivan, P.J., & Larson, R.W. (2010). Connecting youth to high-resource adults: lessons from effective youth programs. Journal of adolescent research, 25(1), 99-123. DOI: 10.1177/0743558409350505. The Trevor Project. (2015). Facts about suicide. Retrieved from: http:// www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/facts-about-suicide. Williams, W.R. (2012). “Untold stories to tell”: making space for the voices of youth songwriters. Journal of adolescent & adult literacy, 56(5). DOI: 10.1002/JAAL.00150. !6