*PROPOSAL - CREATIVE ORGANIZING: ENVISIONING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE*
I am excited to present an innovative curriculum to the Semester in
Detroit (SiD) program. I have been
teaching environmental justice and community organizing in the Detroit context
for the last three years. I strongly
feel that this revised take that emphasizes creativity will not only help the
students understand and learn environmental justice, but will be a tremendous
asset to the Residential College that SiD resides.
Traditionally this course has heavily focused on the problems and
injustice surrounding environmental degradation facing communities. Without compromising the real threat on
communities I would like to take a new approach this year where students can
creatively engage in imagining a society and future without injustice.
Below please you will find the Sp/Su Semesters (7 week course) outlined
by 7 trans-disciplinary creativity themes of observing, perceiving, patterning,
abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling and playing. And I look forward to
discussing this new exciting endeavor
In
addition to the Playbook for Progressives
the text, Sparks of Genius: The 13
Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People (Root-Bernstein 1999), will
be added as a required reading. This new
course will be called Creative
Organizing: Envisioning Environmental Justice.
SiD transforms U-M students through reciprocal relationships
with the people, organizations, and neighborhoods of Detroit. By living, learning, and working in the city, our students engage with community leaders in transformative work
- strengthening themselves as well as the wider region. Adding this curricula will help prepare these
students who are learning and planning alongside community members truly
envision a better Detroit for the People.
Week 1 - Observing:
Students
will be assigned the Observing chapter of Sparks of Justice to be prepared to
participate the first class.
This
class will involve observing ‘what is environmental injustice’. “We must be able to perceive our world
accurately to be able to discern patterns of action, abstract their principles,
make analogies between properties of things, create models of behaviors, and
innovate fruitfully.” I do not want to
dismiss the number of injustices that are happening to communities in Detroit,
Nationally and Internationally. This
first day is about observing environmental injustice accurately. We will hear a historical perspective and
from the voices of those that have been involved in the movement for decades.
This
week we will be setting the groundwork for working creatively in the
class. There will be three sheets on the
wall. The first sheet will state
“Observed injustices”, the second “Bridges we’ve built” and the third “Possible
New Visions”. Today is all about filling
in that first sheet of “Observed injustices”. We will watch a few videos from Environmental
Justice organizations that are currently operating and I will speak directly
about my own experience as organizers in Detroit. I will then go over to the first sheet of
“Observed Injustices” and ask for the students to help me fill in this
page. What were the main themes or
issues they heard from the presentations?
I
will then explain that the remainder of this course will be filling in the “New
Visions” and “Bridges” sheets. All three
sheets will be left up for the seven weeks of the course.
Discussion Questions and Homework: What
are different ways that you can observe justice? How will these new observations lead to new
visions and solutions around justice? At the beginning of the next class we
will take their answers and see where they fit into the “Bridges” and “New
Visions” sheet.
Students
are assigned the perceiving chapter of Sparks of Genius to prepare for the work
on discussion next week.
Week 2 - Perceiving:
‘Sparks of Genius’ describes artist O’Keeffe looking at
familiar objects in new ways - dissecting a jack in the pulpit creating a life
long, almost obsession, for this artist and the details of flowers. As an ode to O’Keeffe and her flower
obsession, we will be visiting a Detroit community garden in the North End (off
Oakland street). I frequent this
neighborhood garden during farmers markets and often take comrades from other
cities and students here to show them part of the vision of what community
resilience can look like.
Gerry Newton will be giving us a tour of the farm and
gardens. After the tour we will use our
sense of taste to try some of the food in the garden. What do liberated spaces like this garden
mean when we think about justice? Think
back to our first class and our observations about the Environmental Justice
Movement. If this garden is an example
of what justice can look like for a community how does that reinforce our
assumptions and observations about environmental justice and how does it
challenge it?
We
will be viewing a number of artist expressions of justice. Below is an example of one of my favorites
from the Beehive Collective. Their
artist expression invites us to think about the world we live in, where our
energy comes from, and what that means for the communities we live in and
surround us. The picture invites us to
“LOOK” and “Listen” to the world around us.
Can we start perceiving a new world?
Discussion Questions and Homework: What
are different ways that you can perceive justice? How will this new perception lead to new
visions and solutions around justice? At
the beginning of the next class we will take their answers and see where they
fit into the “Bridges” and “New Visions” sheet.
Students
are assigned the Patterning chapter of Sparks of Genius to prepare for the work
on discussion next week.
Week 3 - Patterning:
In the patterns chapter of Sparks of Genius we read how difficult
breaking patterns can be if we are acculturated to preferring particular
methods, as described in the book, “[in European music] The patterns and
melodies we hear are preplanned and intended. Some tribal music however
results from collaboration by the players on the spur of the moment.”
(Root-Bernstein 1999)
We are probably all familiar with patterns within Environmental
Justice of oppression and protest, oppression and protest. We will be
listening to some of the music and watching a few videos of Detroit MC’s Sacramento
Knoxx and Will See who within there music put forth a vision for breaking the
patter of oppression and protest – which they call liberation zones through
decolonization.
Knoxx’s work is very multi media. While he raps, his beats,
which incorporate powwow music, are in the background and a video (of his
creation) is synchronized to the beats. His videos are all superimposed
images. Video of him, his collective, pictures of modern day Detroit, and
other Detroit hip-hop artists are juxtaposed under footage of traditional
Anishinaabe dance.
Both Knoxx and See are very clear that “taking back” land, spaces and
houses is a form of decolonization. They
both do community work were they have been able to secure a building to create
art and for non-profits to operate. We
have also experienced a few “liberated” spaces with in Detroit. Community made gardens and centers we have
begun to imagine new patterns that disrupt patterns of oppression.
Discussion Questions and Homework: What
are different ways that you can imagine breaking the patterns of colonization
and oppression? What kind of liberation
zones can you imagine?
In addition to the
Abstracting chapter in Sparks of Genius, students will also be assigned the
Huffington Post article on gentrification and creativity that states, “Anyone
interested in social justice and building the economy of Detroit does not have
to be a pawn in the gentrification and displacement game. Participants at Idea City came up with a tool
kit for artist that want to subvert the traditional course of development”
(Huffington Post 5/16).[1]
Week 4 - Abstracting:
Just as
the key to understanding Picasso’s abstraction of Mari-Thérèse is to, “realize
that abstractions may not represent whole things but one or another of their
less obvious properties” (Root-Bernstein 2001)
I will
show my two pieces of “abstracting justice” in photography and song at the
beginning of class. I took on the
concept of justice – and identified one of its less obvious
properties. To me cultural preservation is a less obvious property
of justice. I looked at abstracting justice in multiple ways. For my two
pieces of abstract art I took on two ways of looking at the arguable center of
Anishinaabe culture – the hand drum. Both of my pieces have a way of
incorporating water justice into them as well. For the Anishibnaabe (the
people of the Great Lakes) water is very central to our culture.
For the
rest of the class period I will have the students get into small groups and
choose
Discussion Questions and
Homework: What are different ways that you can perceive
justice? How will this new perception
lead to new visions and solutions around justice? Students are assigned the Embodied Thinking
chapter of Sparks of Genius to prepare for the work on discussion next week.
Week 5 - Embodied thinking:
In sparks
of genius body learning and understanding was expressed through Helen Keller’s
delight in understanding “jump”. She immediately translated the movement
expression to how we learn – or jump from one idea to another.
Even though it
was only briefly mentioned in Sparks of Genius Charlie Chaplin is a master of
expression just using his body. In art and expression sometime we can
only “think” through doing a movement. We have to “try it out” and learn
by doing. If we don’t move we may stay stuck in our heads.
This week
students will try out an exercise around healing from oppression. To warm
up I will call out different words (such as peacock, ocean etc.) and the students
will have to work together to create a sculpture of that word expression.
Below are their collective sculptures. Below is an example from a past class.
For
the rest of the class period students will work in small groups to create
different forms of oppression and liberation.
One group will be given the theme, “Power within”, another “Power
Together” and the last “Power Over”.
After each group has show the others their group sculpture we will
dissect the different parts of each sculpture and how they were able to convey
liberation and or oppression and what that means towards building our Bridges
and Visions for a Just Future.
Discussion Questions and
Homework: What are different ways that you can embody
justice? How will this new perception
lead to new visions and solutions around justice? Students are assigned the
Modeling chapter of Sparks of Genius to prepare for the work on discussion next
week.
Week 6 - Modeling:
What
kind of community can we create together?
Today’s
lesson is all about modeling. Much like
the embodied thinking – sometimes we need to get out of our heads and just
start building what we want to see in the world. The whole class will be broken up into three
group and each group will be given a large cardboards surface to create your
city and lots of materials, anything from ‘arts and scraps’, of egg cartons,
shoe boxes, yarn etc. to build their city of the future. Each group will also be given a list of
requirements that each city must have (way to dispose of trash, community
center, school, roads, …).
After
each group has presented their city to the others they must each discuss what
was similar to communities and cities they are familiar with and what was much
different.
For this
lesson Geller, in Sparks of Genius, inspired me and how, “she learned her 3-D
skills from her father, a crystallographer at Bell Labs, who bought any kind of
toy that had anything to do with geometry. Geller’s experience suggests
that playing with any type of 3-D puzzle can be useful.”
The rest
of the time will be a presentation on models that have been created for new
visions of environmental justice. I do think it is very challenging to
depict environmental justice in a model. One of the first models around
Environmental Justice that comes to mind (that I loved pulling together and pulling
apart again) is a model I helped to create with my organization and the network
we work within called the Just Transition. The concept of the Just
Transition is to end the era of extreme energy: by creating transition pathways
to end the era of extreme energy like fossil fuels, nuclear power, waste and
biomass incineration, landfill gas, mega-hydro, and agro fuels, and implement a
Just Transition to Local Living Economies in which good, green, and
family-supporting jobs are created for unemployed, and underemployed people,
and workers formerly employed by extreme energy industries. You can view
the model below:
Discussion Questions and
Homework: What are different ways that you can perceive
justice? How will this new perception
lead to new visions and solutions around justice?
Students
are assigned the Playing chapter of Sparks of Genius to prepare for the work
and discussion next week.
Week 7 - Playing:
For this
weeks themes of Playing we will be acting out the timeline of the Environmental
Justice movement and the story of the birth of the Social Forum (WSF) in Brasil
(2002) that found its way to Detroit (USSF 2010). Using this weeks reading on “Playing” in
Root-Bernstein’s’ Sparks of Genius and from the journal of extension
blog, “Creative Teaching: Simulations, Games, and Role Playing” I was really
inspired to revisit an idea I had a few years ago but never implemented
fully. We will be taking this week’s class period and will turn the EJ
timeline and story into a play or interpretive kind of dance.
The
steps for implementing this exercise are as follows:
1 I’ll take the EJ history/ timeline
and WSF/ USSF story and shorten both to one page or less
2 Look for descriptive words to
highlight. Also look for words that are describe key moments or concepts
and make that phase or word as descriptive as you can. What would someone
have fun dancing, playing or acting out. I.E. instead of saying such and
such movement started, or the organization was formed used phases liked
“birthed” or “busted onto the scene”.
3 Once you have your written
statement run through it with someone that can be a “insider” – that will have
a little familiarity with the material and help move the group through the
scenes.
4 Find some fun music without words
(maybe something that fits the mood)
5 During the event or class, recruit
several volunteers to dance, act or play out the scenes you have chosen.
Discussion Questions and
wrap up: What are different ways does playing help you
to understand justice? How will play
lead to new visions and solutions around justice?
Look
at our three boards and review the bridges and solution we built over the term.
FINAL
PROJECT: Students will also present their group projects this week which is to
work with a group of 3 – 4 students to come up with a creative and interactive
activity, inspired by one of the activities they did this term, to express
their concept of what a just and creative world could look like in the future.
