Grade 12 Visual Arts

Created by Renée Brazeau

GRADE/SUBJECT: Grade 12 Visual Art (AVI 4M)

LESSON TITLE: Be(longing) in the Gallery

PRE-LESSON ACTIVITY

Meet the artists:

Viewing these videos of the artists prior to the tour/workshop will help students understand their work and themes explored throughout the lesson. Teachers can take 10 minutes to watch these videos in class with the students to familiarize themselves with the artists and their work.

LESSON DESCRIPTION

Either in-person or virtually, students will experience the exhibition Elusive Desires. They will look at the art of Lan Florence Yee (they/he) and Ness Lee (she/they) to engage in discussion around historical and contemporary representations of art and artists within the Canadian context. Students will discuss the implications of excluding certain bodies and identities from spaces and social difference within art.


Guiding Questions

  • Which identities are most represented within Canadian Art History?

  • Which identities are visible in the art gallery?

  • Who has traditionally been excluded from the art gallery?


Vocabulary

  • Diaspora: a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic locale

  • Queer: umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender.

  • Gender non-conforming: refers to a person who does not conform to current social gender norms.

LESSON OUTLINE

*This lesson is designed for an in-person gallery visit, however, if necessary, it may be adapted to a remote learning format. Teachers will be supplied with a slide deck presentation containing images of relevant artworks in the exhibition and carry out the lesson plan outside of the gallery setting.

 

PART 1: EXHIBITION TOUR

(approx. 45 minutes)

 

Materials needed:

Clipboards + Paper, or student’s sketchbook

Pencils (one for each student)


Introduction

Welcome to the gallery.

  • Ask the class: Has anyone been to this gallery before? If students respond yes, ask them what they saw while they were there.

  • Remind students of public health protocols

 

Students should already know the following rules, but you can remind them if necessary:

  • Don’t touch the artwork

  • Do not run in the gallery

  • Be mindful of other people in the space (i.e. keep your voice at an appropriate level, stay 2m away from other groups, etc.)

 

During today’s tour, we will be discussing ideas of identity and belonging within the art gallery. We will be coming back to following main question: who belongs in the art gallery?

Artwork 1: Artwork from the permanent collection

Think-Pair-Share / Minds-On Activity

  • What types of artworks would you expect to see in this art gallery? (For example, at the Varely, there are many landscape and figure paintings in the permanent collection). What types of artists do you expect to be represented at this gallery? On a piece of paper, take 3 minutes to write or draw your answer to this question. Now, take 2 minutes to quickly discuss your thoughts with the person next to you.

  • Ask a few groups to share what they wrote down or drew. Were there any similarities/commonalities between the answers? Was there anything missing from the answers. What do these answers reveal about our ideas around the artwork shown at the Varley? Whose story is typically represented in the gallery space? (white, cis, straight men) Whose story is typically excluded from the gallery space? (queer, IBPOC, women artists, people with disabilities, etc.)

  • Look around the room. What types of artworks do you see? Do these artworks match with the artworks you expected to see within a gallery setting? Why or why not?


Guide the group to the Elusive Desires exhibition.

Artwork 2: Finding Myself at the Museum

Our tour today focuses on the works of two artists named Ness Lee and Lan Florence Yee. They are queer artists of Hakka and Cantonese descent.

 

The first work we will be looking at is by artist, Lan Florence Yee, and is entitled Finding Myself at the Museum (2021). Florence uses they/them pronouns and considers themselves a queer Cantonese diasporic artist.

Lan Florence Yee, Finding Myself at the Varley Art Gallery, 2021

Guiding Questions:

  1. What do you see in this artwork? (a painting projected onto a person)

  2. What type of painting is the person standing in front of? (a Canadian landscape painting created by F. Varley)

  3. Where is this person? (in a gallery, presumably in Canada)

  4. Who is this person? (it is the artist Lan Florence Yee)

  5. Why do you think the artist has positioned the figure with the artwork in such manner? (it appears as those the figure is looking for something, perhaps themselves in the collection)

  6. Do you think they have a specific relationship to the artwork? (maybe they made it, maybe they like it, maybe they hate it, maybe this is an artwork they saw in a gallery?)

  7. Why do you think the artist chose this title? What does it reveal about the work of art or the meaning? (the figure observes gaps in the archive, IBPOC artists are largely missing)

  8. How is this work similar or different from the work of art we saw in the permanent collection section? (answers will vary)

  9. What do you think the artist is trying to say by positioning themselves, a queer Cantonese gender-nonconforming person, in front of a Canadian landscape painting? (Canadian art history is still largely androcentric, Eurocentric, hetero and cis-gendered)

Artwork 3: Selected Hauntings

Lan Florence Yee, Selected Hauntings, 2018

Take a few minutes to walk around the artwork. Notice what is written on the scrolls by the artist. What does this work bring to mind? What emotions does this work evoke? What puzzles you?

 

Let’s take a look at the first scroll. (Florence Cing-Gaai Yee)

  • What is embroidered on the scroll? (a name, the artist’s name, a red zigzag under the second name)

  • Why do you think there is a red zig zag under the name? (it is misspelled, spellcheck doesn’t recognize it; the artist has embroidered the spellcheck red underline symbol to indicate how computer software does not recognize their Cantonese names as valid spelling.)

  • What do you think the artist is trying to say by embroidering the spellcheck symbol? (they are indicating how their name is considered an “error”, suggesting that they do not belong or that Cantonese is an aberration).

  • Have you ever encountered a similar experience of a word, or a name being spellchecked?

  • How did it make you feel?

 

In this series, the Lan Florence Yee has embroidered memories or experiences that haunt them. The title of the piece is Selected Hauntings.

 

Look at the material the artist uses. What material do you think the artist used to make these tapestry scrolls? (organza). Organza is a material composed of silk fibers. Pass around a piece of organza for the students to touch. As you are feeling the piece of organza, what does it remind you of? What do you think this material is used for? (wedding dresses, gowns). Organza is often used to make gowns/dresses. China is one of the biggest exporters of organza fabric. This fabric is difficult to work with since it is so delicate. It cannot be washed in the washing machine, which means it must be hand washed or dry-cleaned. It is also very difficult to embroider.

 

Why do you think the artist would choose to embroider onto this fabric, despite the fact that it is so difficult to work with? (it is ghost-like, airy/lightweight, transparent and labour-intensive; perhaps the artist wanted to spend the time thinking about these words; perhaps the point was to spend more time with these phrases, it represents a connection to their Cantonese heritage)

Artwork 4: Ness Lee’s a soft place to land (2021)

Ness Lee, a soft place to land, 2021

Guide students through a discussion referencing aspects of critical analysis. Since the work will be site-specific the discussion questions below are rather vague. The questions are taken directly from the Ministry of Education Ontario curriculum document.

  1. Initial Reaction

  • What does this work bring to mind?

  • What emotions does this work evoke?

  • What puzzles you?

  • What connections can you make between this work and Lan Florence Yee’s work?


2. Analysis and interpretation

  • What does this work bring to mind?

  • What emotions does this work evoke?

  • What puzzles you?

  • What connections can you make between this work and Lan Florence Yee’s work?


3. Analysis and interpretation

  • What elements/principles are used in this work?

  • What do you think is the theme or subject of the work?

  • What is the artist trying to communicate, and why?

  • What message or meaning do you think the work conveys?


4. Consideration of Cultural Context

  • What statement is the artist trying to express, by taking up space with drawings of their body.

  • Why is this artwork relevant within the context of a Canadian art gallery such as the Varley?

  • Why is it important to have this artwork shown at the Varley gallery?


5. Expression of Aesthetic Judgement

  • How effectively does the artist select and combine elements to achieve and intended effect in this work?

  • Has your point of view shifted from your initial reaction? If so, how has it changed? Why?

  • In what ways does the artist evoke joy, sadness, or other emotions in this work? What do you see that makes you say that? (Ness Lee has also said that the amount of space the figure takes up on a canvas represents how much they are feeling.)

PART 2: ART ACTIVITY

* 45-minute workshop on-site, or the teacher may choose to introduce this activity as a follow-up exercise in class.

 

An Imaginative Self-Portrait: Bodies Belonging in Space

Taking Lan Florence Yee and Ness Lee’s artwork as inspiration, create a visual representation of yourself/your body. Now you are tasked with positioning your body within a space. Think about who has been traditionally represented in this space. How is your occupancy of this space disrupting or reinforcing its history? What bodies usually occupy this space? Do you belong in this space, why or why not? You could imagine yourself in front of a specific artwork in a gallery, in a specific location, or even inside a painting.

 

This is an imaginative self-portrait. Think about how you want to represent yourself – what are you wearing? is this in the future or the past? Is this imagined or could it be real? Why did you choose this location – do you feel excluded from this location? Would you normally have access to it? How are you disrupting the environment? Who is traditionally included or excluded in this space? What emotions are you trying to convey by having this body occupy space in this setting?

 

What medium will you choose? (Painting, photograph, textiles, collage, digital collage, drawing, combination of multiple mediums, sculpture – air-dry clay, etc.?)

 

Materials

  • Air-dry clay

  • Cardboard

  • Paper

  • Decorative materials (fabric, pipe cleaners, etc.)

  • Sharpies

  • Paint