On Tuesday, January 27, 23HAM participated in the Learning for Life after-school program at Fruitvale School in Oakland. We titled our visit ‘Redrawing Borders’ – activities that guided them in thinking about borders and provided artistic outlets to express their own responses. These activities further explored our Navigate/Position theme and politely coincided with the ‘Begin Anywhere’ show, where the artists had to visualize change starting with a map.

Our first activity was to draw a map of your route from your house to school. What landmarks do you pass on the way there and back? We had the students share large pieces of paper, so it was interesting to see how they placed their houses and the school in relation to each other. One group spent the whole afternoon with a pencil and ruler meticulously drawing buildings and roads like an architect would. Some kids had no regard for that. Everyone had a different technique.

In the middle of all the activity, we took time out for a little history lesson and tested them on some important historical American figures just to re-emphasize the importance of Obama being the first African-American President – talk about redrawing borders. So, the next activity was to trace a map of the USA and draw your own boundaries. We left this as open ended as possible. Some children literally traced the state lines. Some were more adventurous and tried to map the cold/warm places. One thing remained consistent – California was always in the right place.

Before returning the children’s work, we will have the artwork available for people to view for the duration of our current exhibition ‘Begin Anywhere,’ which is closing on Thursday, Feb 12. Please schedule an appointment with us.