Bringing Lapala and Eagle’s Nest to the Art Museum: A Model Text
When in schools we talk about text-to-text connections, we tend to think of printed text. But there is power in connecting what we read to what we see. Here is an example of someone familiar with the Eagle's Nest project who attends an exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum and thinks about what she has learned about the multiracial communities in light of the artwork she observes.
How I Brought Eagles Nest to the Museum
Last week I visited the Phoenix Museum of Art in Arizona and was gobsmacked by the exhibit entitled And Let It Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora. Both the website and the art work made me think about how complex identity really is.
Two pieces in particular caught my attention. The first, by Nadiya Nacorda, literally layers photographs to engage the viewer. The image pictures a girl who standing face-forward, holding a photograph of her grandparents. Although the girl, the main character in the image, would likely be identified as African-American, the artist uses her skill to portray depth and diversity in personal history. The vast, blue sea as background recalls both an ocean ancestors were forced to cross as well as one immigrant relatives chose to traverse. The sea, though undefined, calls on us to consider people in relation to place.
People and place…foreground and background…
I remember talking with a woman about Eagle’s Nest and Lapala.
“Eagle’s Nest, Lapala, it’s all the same” she told me. And to her these locations are the same, both sites of family roots, family gatherings, sometimes at one place, sometimes at the other. But for many, these mountain roads are miles apart. And both perceptions are correct.
Look at this image by artist, Widline Cadet who pictures a girl, the same girl, in three different poses. In one case the two images are conjoined, they literally share a body. Close by she stands independently, a single image of herself. We come from a place, move from that place, look back at that place, feel both connected to and separate from our people, from ourselves.
Share one or more of these images with students. Ask what connections they might make between the image and an entry on the website.