Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:00 — 40.5MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Arts Educational practitioner and social theorist Maxine Greene explains that “social imagination is the capacity to invent visions of what should be and what might be in our deficit society, in the streets where we live and our schools. Social imagination not only suggests but also requires that one take action to repair or renew.”
In this segment of bloomingOUT, we interview four local Arts Educator Practitioners/theorists who have been using the arts as a means to “Queer the social imagination” through the use of multiple art forms from visual, dance, sound and drama as tools for social change and as research paradigms.
Joining us in this episode:
Linda Helmick is a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Instruction and Art Education at Indiana University. She is an artist/researcher/teacher who grounds her work in the belief that creative expression is a basic human right and she promotes creativity as a powerful force for change and transformation. She has worked with homeless and incarcerated populations and is currently collaborating with an art therapist serving youth who have experienced trauma.
Alexandria Hollett is a doctoral candidate in the departments of Curriculum and Instruction and Gender Studies at Indiana University. Formerly a Chicago Public School teacher, she grounds her research, teaching, art, and activism in the tenets of anti-oppressive education, feminism, queer utopia, and prison abolition. Off campus, you can catch her performing at The Back Door, collaborating with local activists and artists, and eating pizza.
Kaelly Collins is a senior at IU studying Elementary Education. Suitable pronouns would be she/her/hers. Kaelly’s goal as a future educator is to help students build their own identities and celebrate the diversity that each student will bring to the classroom.
We would also like to welcome our new hosts:
Gustave Weltsek, PhD., who is an Assistant Professor of Arts and Education from IU’s School of Education whose areas of research include the use and study of creative and imaginative critical pedagogies for social change as learning, with a focus on work with youth identity construction through drama.
Kevin Mohsenzadeh, our other new co-host. He is from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a Junior at IU studying law and public policy. He has experience working on political campaigns both on campus and in the Bloomington area. He is also a member of the IU-Dance Marathon as a part of the public relations committee.
Featured music this week was the song “Shushan” by Balkan Beat Box, from their debut self-titled release from 2005.
Credits
Hosts: Frankie Presslaff, Gustave Weltsek, and Kevin Mohsenzadeh.
Engineer: Lucas Fisher
Executive Producer and WFHB News Director: Wes Martin
