Art has always been a voice for change and a medium for expressing ideas that words alone cannot convey. The Art and Activism class once bridged creativity and social awareness, teaching students how to use art as a tool for promoting awareness around inequities.

The Art and Activism class was an elective offered at the school taught by Lori Lynn; however, this past year, not enough students signed up to take the class and as a result, it is not running. It had previously been a single semester class run during one block in the Unified Arts building. The class was first taught during the 2022-2023 school year and last taught during the 2023-2024 school year. The class taught ways that students can use visual arts to enhance messages and work as a form of activism. Concepts like using art to elevate activism and raise awareness are now integrated into various classes, allowing the class’s legacy to live on, and proving that the power of art to inspire activism is far from gone.

Visual Arts Interim Department Chair Donna Sartanowicz said that the class had a competition with other electives, some of which touched on similar topics.

“We just felt like we had so many students requesting other classes that we had to put our resources where we had more sign-ups,” Sartanowicz said.

Lynn said that the class taught ways that art could be used to accentuate activism themes and spread them to a wide audience. She said that art creates a bridge between facts and art.

“For each project, I would base it on a specific type of work that activists do, for instance trying to bring awareness around factual information. How do we create images that represent important facts that we want people to understand?” Lynn said.

Lynn said that the class showed students how to use art to better bring attention to statistics and issues. She said that she taught students to use art and activism to build community by elevating the voices of others and listening to them.

Sartanowicz said that despite the class being dissolved, its subject matter remains important. She said that the ideas of how art and activism can be used together are taught in a variety of classes, such as Theater for Social Change, Photography, Global Leadership, Graphic Design, Art Studio and more.

Sartanowicz said that whether or not students recognize it, they use art to accentuate their activism within in-school programs.

“There’s certainly a lot of people who are into environmental stuff at this school and so, you might see art in service of supporting recycling, and how to recycle, or it might also be more emotional appeal about animals,” Sartanowicz said.

Sartanowicz said that she believes that the most valuable art is the kind that is accessible to everyone in the public domain.

“But when you see something like that, that is a public art piece, I think that kind of thing when I think of environmental or art as activism generally, those are the pieces that reach the most number of people in a subtle but impactful way,” Sartanowicz said.

Sartanowicz said that schools don’t provide as much opportunity for public displays of art, but projects worked on by groups in the community are also very impactful. She explained that there is power in a project that gets people more involved and working together in support of a common goal.

Mark Vanderzee, teacher for the Theater for Social Change class, said performing arts serve as an effective tool for promoting activism, and is a way that artists can get involved with political movements.

“It’s a means of communicating ideal futures, and I think stories about people are some of the most impactful ways to motivate change,” Vanderzee said. “Those stories get us to connect with other people and empathize.”

Vanderzee said that a key distinction between statistics and stories, in terms of activism, is that while statistics are based on facts, stories are not necessarily. He said that they open up conversations and discussions that can change people’s opinions.

Sartanowicz said that visual arts can aid in teaching the weight of facts past the simple data and in communicating them in a multiplicity of ways. She said that it allows an artist to bring attention to a particular topic they feel passionately about or believe are important.

“Artists, in what they choose to highlight, what they choose to put in their work, are making a value statement,” Sartanowicz said.

Sartanowicz said that art is accessible to anyone who wishes to use it. It can take any form and doesn’t require any specific materials.

“That’s the really unique thing about art,” Sartanowicz said. “It’s open to all possibilities in both subject matter and expression.”