Student Projects & Adaptations: Steel Valley High School
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Meagan O’Toole, Video Productions
Gail Meister, Visual Art

Summary:

Meagan O’Toole and Gail Meister’s Collecting Unit lead to compelling discussions on a range of issues from the ethical nature of public zoo collections of animals to Nazi Germany and the holocaust. In O’Toole’s video production class, students explored many artists and their use of materials and techniques in order to gain an understanding of what art is in the contemporary realm of new media and how they can understand it through the activity of collecting. Staff from The Andy Warhol Museum presented information about Warhol and other artists’ practices at the school to motivate students and guide their aesthetic inquiry. These motivations were key factors in the unit’s success. The students were interested in the overlap between art and other disciplines in this project. They asked to see more film and video work by artists and also strengthened their philosophical questioning and inquiry skills.

Adaptations:

Personal Collecting: Teacher Boxes
A motivating factor used by O’Toole and Meister was their adaptation termed the “Teacher Box.” Teachers within the school created personal collections of objects, which were displayed in the school, and students were invited to guess which box belonged to which teacher.

Professional Collecting: Portia Munson inspires group project
One of Steel Valley’s collaborative projects used Portia Munson’s collecting practice as a model. Each student collected objects according to the rainbow colors: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The objects were sorted, arranged, photographed, and reproduced in poster-style formats (see Image Gallery). These artworks were submitted to The Andy Warhol Museum’s Youth Invasion and accepted into the curated exhibition.