Gallery Talk 3: Making an Image of Women in Contemporary Society

This Workshop explores contemporary women’s history with a particular focus on the media’s representations of women and influences on women’s lives. Taking a critical and gender-based view, scholars in women’s history have uncovered the gender assumptions and inequalities in contemporary society. They strongly advocate women to use their creative mind and ability to critically (re)create popular visual culture as a way to re-think and challenge social issues that impact women’s lives. Following this spirit, in this Gallery Talk 3, you will produce an original creative work to examine a social issue affecting women’s lives in contemporary society.

Your original creative (or art) work must be made by yourself. It can be a piece of drawing, painting, collage, photograph, small sculpture, poster, scrapbooking/paper craft, fiber art, mix-media art/craft, and so forth. You are welcome to use all sorts of material for your creative work (see Figure 1, Friends as an example). If you need artistic inspiration, consider browsing art and craft websites, museum and gallery websites, art and craft books, and your local art and craft stores.

Your creative work will not be evaluated based on the traditional artistic merit, as this is a general education course. A good artwork, however, requires careful thinking, planning, and making; that is, you should carefully apply the artistic elements (e.g. composition, color, contrast, focal point, etc.), consider how best to “visualize” a social issue in your work, and exercise creative process (e.g., choosing appropriate art and craft material, practicing good hand craftsmanship, making sketches before the final work). Note: A Powerpoint presentation is not considered as creative work for this assignment.

In about 250 words, introduce the following items:

Title of your original creative work
The social issue you intended to examine through your original creative work. Use course texts or external resources to support or analyze the social issue.
Your artistic choices: choice of material, artistic elements, symbolism if used, and how your artistic choices help to visually present the social issue
Your creative process: your experience working with the chosen material, thought process while creating your original work, artistic or intellectual challenges encountered, creative problem-solving strategies, etc.
A couple of questions or thoughts that would encourage the class to appreciate and examine together your original creative work and the social issue you intended to study.
Label your post with the title of your creative work, then post your writing along with a clear copy of your original creative work to this discussion forum. If an external image is used in your original work, you must provide a citation for the image.