Conference Proceedings 2010 [pdf] - Art & Design Symposium ...

conditions, and situations. Throughout time and across cultures and societies, artists have documented,
promoted, informed, and shaped social justice. Among numerous examples within the context of contemporary
visual art and visual culture, below we highlight the work of four artists who exemplify our vision of engaged
social justice: Mel Chin, Natalie Jeremijenko, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Samuel Mockbee.
Recently, Mel Chin has mobilized the Fundred Dollar Bill project, a collaborative effort among communities to
raise awareness and attention to the ongoing rebuilding efforts of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
(Fundred, 2009). Perhaps Chin's best known work to engage social justice through visual art is Revival Field,
an environmental installation in which he used hyperaccumulator plants such as jimsonweed to filter heavy
metals from the soil (Art 21, 2007a). Similarly, Natalie Jeremijenko (http://www.slowlab.net/natalie
jeremijenko.html) has initiated her environmental installation "OneTrees," a work comprised of one thousand
walnut tree clones. The trees will document a number of social and environmental characteristics of the
locations in which they are planted. The information gathered through the growth (or lack thereof) of these
identical trees will reflect and critique various climate, social, economic, and environmental disparities and
qualities of various locations in the San Francisco Bay area.
Through the use of digital projections, Krzysztof Wodiczko has constructed visual collaborations with
community members in cities such as Hiroshima, Japan; Tijuana, Mexico; and Bunker Hill, U.S.A., as forms
of commentary on social injustice (Art 21, 2007b). These postmodern digital murals challenge conventional
notions of public spaces as they render explicit the complex discourse of human rights and the
interconnections between victims and passers-by.
Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee dedicated his life to providing homes for the most impoverished residents of rural
Alabama through the Rural Studio. He believed that good design should improve the lives of all people.
Students engage practical architectural education and social welfare by using salvaged, recycled, and other
low-cost building materials, such as car windshields, worn-out tires, and carpet tiles (Rural Studio, 2009) to
create refurbished homes, community spaces, and other sites. The completed works, being specifically
designed to serve the community, are at once as functional as they are beautiful, symbols of hope, growth, and
perseverance. Such is our stance on engaged social justice through and as visual art and creative actions.
Point of Use Ceramic Water Filters: Global and Local Examples
For the past three years, members of The TAMU Water Project have worked toward enacting social justice
through interdisciplinary and integrated cultural work. The TAMU Water Project
(http://tamuwaterproject.wordpress.com) was initiated in 2006 as a joint educational, research, and social
action project focused on the production of ceramic water filters and to the development of related social,
community, and educational initiatives. In direct response to the shortage of potable water for nearly 500,000
Texas colonias residents, the TAMU Water Project is dedicated to the production, distribution, and research of
affordable, appropriate technology, point of use ceramic water filters. These filters are made from a clay body
and approach similar to the one used by Potters for Peace (http://www.pottersforpeace.org/).
Oscar Muñoz (Deputy Director of the Colonias Program, Center for Housing and Urban Development at Texas
A&M University) and B. Stephen Carpenter II (Associate Professor of Art Education and Visual Culture, Texas
A&M University) established the TAMU Water Project in consultation with artists, potters and social activists
Richard Wukich and Manny Hernandez. They have since expanded the interdisciplinary focus of the project in
collaboration with Bryan Boulanger (Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University) and Alicia
Dorsey (Vice President for Program Development and Community Outreach, Texas A&M Health Science
Center). Graduate and undergraduate students have also contributed to the research, design and production of
filters as well as the design of curriculum documents for K-12 students.
As an interdisciplinary engagement of creative public pedagogy informed by social, cultural, political, and
health issues related to inadequate access to potable water, the TAMU Water Project exemplifies the theory
and practice of our vision of social justice. Like the artists described above, the TAMU Water Project has taken
on the task of engaging a public pedagogy of social justice that includes an ongoing collaboration among
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