Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: May 20, 2004
Latest Update: May 20, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Debriefing a Project for the Exhibit

Questions I've been asking myself:

1. What did you feel when you walked into an art exhibit that wasn't an art exhibit but that was an art exhibit?

2. Did it feel like an art exhibit? Was that good or bad?

3. Do you get to talk about the work at an art exhibit? Did you get to talk about the exhibits in this art exhibit?

4. I had trouble with George's TV Sermon because he wanted me to sit still and listen for at least twenty minutes and I felt that violated the intent of a visual exhibit. How do you feel about that? Should exhibits be affairs that can be grasped at least partially in a minimal time frame? What then about follow through information for those who want to pursue them more deeply?

5. I liked having the exhibit two days in the same (well, except for President Lyons) place because I liked seeing people return. What exactly do you think the "coming and going" represented to me? I think it might have been a kind of answerability, and it may have related to what I felt with George's sermon. I wanted the kind of freedom you have in any exhibit, or on TV, to look, or not to look. To look, realize that you missed something, and go back to look again another time. Answerability? I never realized it before, but looking at art has a kind of "privacy" issue attached to it, because in order to experience art, which demands vulnerability, you are exposing yourself to others. So are you when you answer. Perhaps that's why we have so many ritual answers in our dominant discourse: like "How are you?" "I'm fine."

6. Some of us sat and discussed Sheryell's picture collection on spirituality. She brought us just the poster, with little or no explanation for how or why she chose the magazine and news photos she selected. As we pieced the whole together we asked her:

   1. Why did you choose to cut out that picture? What did it mean to you?

      1. The Pope smiling in the center of the poster. Because he was warm and healthy and gesturing with his right arm out for all of us to come to spirituality. He was welcoming about an issue that concerned Sheryell at that point.

      2. The nuns with guns. Because it was different. They were different. Why would that difference appeal to Sheryell. Partially because it was funny; a contradiction in images; and partly because it communicated the message to Sheryell that being different was OK; that being different didn't rule out spirituality.

      3. The group of nuns in the lower right corner. Smiling, ordinary nuns, lined up for a portrait in someone's backyard. And tall. Most of them were tall. Sheryell's son is tall. And the setting brought the spiritual to an everyday location with which we are all familiar.

      4. In the upper left-hand corner a painting of people, perhaps nuns, kneeling in a narrow chapel. Sheryell described the chapel as long and narrow and dark. Narrowness and darkness mostly. There is danger in spirituality. When we asked if that had prompted Sheryell's response to the picture, she agreed. Of course, we had suggested it by asking, so we will never know whether that was her interpretation or one that we prompted. That's the trouble with questioning. It alters the situation you are trying to understand. So you have to be careful not to suggest the answers you want.

      5. In the middle on the left, a nun giggling sweetly. She looked mischievous and like she'd be fun to know. We asked if that picture, right under the one of the painting, suggested that spirituality wasn't forbidding and didn't rule out mischief and fun. Sheryell agreed, but once again, our prompt was intrusive.

      6. At the bottom center, several nuns were digging in a rose garden. Sheryell said that the picture had reminded her of her Mother's rose garden and their working in it. So here again, was a subtle family tie that linked the subject of spirituality to Sheryell's own life.

      7. And lastly, in the lower left, a small picture of the Pope, his hands raised in prayer. Kind of like a small seal of approval on taking a spiritual perspective of life.

   2. Did the set of pictures chosen, taken as a whole as a visual project, tell us something that Sheryell might have had a difficult time discussing or articulating in class?

   3. Does the debriefing and analysis help understand the visual message as a whole?

   4. Did the fact that the debriefing took place at Table 13 where we were decorating goblets make it easier to debrief?

7. Where and when should debriefing of art projects take place?

   1. During the exhibit. That's why chairs have been randomly placed so we can gather in little groups to talk.

   2. At a table like Table 13 that offers some activity that makes discussion less threatening.

   3. As a report after the exhibit.

   4. As an accompaniment to the project at the exhibit.

   5. Other.