Southern
Exposure 
401 Alabama Street
San FranciscoCA94110415-863-2141415-863-1841
 Program: Artists
in Education Year Started: 1989 Focus: Visual Arts Youth Served: 450 Ages: 6-19 Budget: $45,000 Southern Exposure's Artists in Education (AIE) program pools community resources-artists, students, schools and nonprofit community organizations' to address contemporary community issues through the visual arts. The program provides opportunities for students and artists to learn from one another. The AIE program takes place after school in day treatment centers, schools and other community-based sites that lack the resources for arts activities. "Southern Exposure's Artists in Education program has been tremendously successful in exposing our students to a wide variety of media within the context of community activism," notes one site director. Artists go to the sites one to two times a week for 1 to 3 hour sessions throughout the school year to conduct theme-based programs in photography, mixed media, videography, painting, sculpture and media literacy. Recent youth projects include bus shelter posters, a magazine and photographic documentary of life in the Mission District, pinhole photography, found-object sculptures exploring environmentalism and recycling and an exploration of media imagery and its effect on cultural stereotyping. Programs at all the sites include field trips and a final project such as an exhibition or a student-made magazine. |