Learning from Women: Weather Knitting as an Arts-Informed Reflection on How We Fight for Equity
Heather Sloane, PhD, LISW; Lori Lux; DaMarco Hill; Duvonna Goins & Tanesha Williams | September 22 | 3:15-4:15 pm
Topic: Art, Conceptual | Knowledge Level: Beginner
The instructor and several members of a class on disparities, diversity, and social justice in social work will discuss the results of their work over a semester using arts-informed inquiry to self-reflect and critically analyze theories of privilege and oppression. Weather knitting (also known as temperature blanket/scarf/project) is a folk-art form where women knit or crochet each day using the temperature to decide the color of yarn used. Most recently, weather knitting has been used as a science-art-community effort to better understand the impact of global warming. Dr. Sloane and her students use weather knitting as a way to considering how we make advocacy choices daily and better understand the limitations of concepts like cultural humility and cultural competence as they relate to social work education and social work practice. Students involved in this class chose their art medium - yarn, collage, or poetry. Art-informed research requires the artist/researcher to stop and reflect on their actions and become aware of the discrimination and privilege that surrounds them, much like paying attention to the weather. In this presentation, students will share excerpts from their journaling of their advocacy activities and representing their actions in artwork based on a color key of advocacy they created at the beginning of the semester (Myzelev, 2021; Shopa, 2021). Because the knowledge creation of women is often dismissed, this class uses traditions of women’s art inquiry as a legitimate method to better understand power/political dynamics and the environment of discrimination.
Presentation Objectives:
· Describe ways that art can be used for self-reflection and consciousness raising about discrimination
· Consider the ways in which knowledge creation by individuals on the margins of society are dismissed
· Demonstrate how art can be used as data collection and a legitimate form of inquiry