Remember, Reflect, Reimagine:
Illustration for Spatial Justice
Fall 2021 Youth Artist Project with Artist-in-Residence Yuko Okabe
November 15 - December 21, 2021
Illustration for Spatial Justice is taught by Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Yuko Okabe, who is an illustrator, cultural worker, and storyteller with passions for social justice, community-engaged art, and youth empowerment.
This Urbano Y.A.P. focuses on illustration, storytelling, community, equity, and belonging. We will consider how we can use illustration as a mindful method of observation and imagination to envision healthy, equitable public spaces in our communities.
Through journalistic drawing, Youth Artists will holistically document both natural and human-made spaces around Boston, and contemplate what these spaces mean to us. Discussions, readings, and visiting artists will center on community development and explore how art can hold space for reflection and reenvisioning in our neighborhoods.
While this project provides basic lessons in observational drawing, we will prioritize storytelling techniques over technical skills. Towards the end of the project, Youth Artists will expand their drawings into complex illustrations, incorporating a variety of methods of creative documentation such as collage, photography, sound, poetry, and more. We will combine our illustrations into a group map illustrating the collective past, present, and future community in Boston.
Visit the “Pinpoint Boston” exhibition, co-produced with ICA Teens!
On view through June 2022
Site Visit #1: Ruggles Station & Southwest Corridor Park
Public space as our classroom! Youth Artists took to Ruggles Station & Southwest Corridor Park. We learned about the park’s history in anti-highway community activism and practiced our observational drawing skills. Some of our final illustrations captured scenes among people in the park, while others totally reimagined the design and function of the T-station!
Site Visit #2: Prudential Center
At the Prudential Center, we learned about the history of urban renewal associated with the building’s rise, and discussed ideas of gentrification, housing inequality, capitalism, etc. From people-watching, we then created imaginative drawings in connection with the Prudential’s history and impact.
Site Visit #3: Boston Public Library
People-watching and sketching at BPL Boston! Youth Artists learned about composition, proportion, gesture, and other key concepts while drawing people in the library in imaginative scenes.
