Found Art- The Gay Rights Movement, 1970 through 1990

We are ... Coming out of our closet and proud of it.

The partial purpose of our project was to throw light upon the coming out of the gay community to be true to their feelings. We symbolized this action of the gay community by building a closet like structure with cardboard and showing the gay community walking out into a world they were initially not accepted in.

In our project we portrayed the two adversary worlds with the use of two cardboard boxes, one of which was painted black and red to show hatred towards and opposition to the community coming out of the second box that was painted in rainbow colors. To portray pro-gay ideas, we pasted a 2D figurine of Harvey Milk, a key leader in the struggle for gay rights, and an album produced in 1976 by Elton John a famous pianist who declared his homosexuality in an interview in 1976. Through the use of the outside cover of the movie, “The Longtime Companion" (1990) which deals with a gay couple and the issue of AIDS, we intended to illustrate the extent to which the idea of homosexuality had crept into the society. Since homosexuality was often related to AIDS, we included AIDS quilts that my group member came across in a thrift store. To display the element of opposition of the gay-rights movement, we included pictures of the prominent anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, delivering a speech to an assembly of anti-gay fanatics who were affiliated to the "Save Our Children" campaign. Anti-gay rally pictures captured the element of violence and level of opposition against the gay community. We obtained our found art from teachers, neighbors, thrift stores and our own garage.

This project enriched me with experience. I learnt so much more about the gay right movement than I did initially. I experienced the highs and lows of working with, and depending on, other people to meet a project deadline. This project involved thinking outside the box while communicating an idea to an audience that may generally not be aware of the topic. After glancing at the finished project it occurred to me that it must have taken tremendous courage for the gay people of that time to declare their sexual orientation to the world despite of known opposition.

The advice I offer to next year’s class is effectively delegating tasks after looking at skill sets of the group members. There will never be enough time to complete a project to ones liking. Therefore, one needs to be creative, use everyday artifacts to symbolize and represent a theme relating to ones topic.

Found Art Project

The theme of our found art project was the awareness of Gay rights. We were on a mission to collect 10 items which dealt with people’s opposition of or approval for gay and lesbian people. These items were required to be from between 1970 and 1990 and needed to represent key events, people, places, concepts, and organizations.

On our set up of the project we had two boxes, one for the items supporting gays, and the other box with items opposing gays. For both supporting and opposition items we acquired a couple of posters from either Harvey Milk (a major supporter of gays) or posters from riots of people trying to get rid of gays. We used the internet to find quotes said by major influences from the US in this time period. We got a couple squares of quilt examples from the Aids Quilt, an Elton John record (he was a supporter of gays), a move dealing with gays, and a sticker about accepting gay people. We got these items from teachers, neighbors, libraries, and flea markets.

If I were to do this project again I would plan much better and use my time more efficiently. I would try to find more found art objects to cover the boxes and I would assemble the boxes and objects to look a little less rushed. I would have liked to have found a shirt or pins dealing with my topic.

Some advice for people doing this project in the future is, do not wait until the last minute to find your ten found art items. This may seem like an easy task but it is not. You may have items in mind that you want to use for your project that has been thrown away or an item might not fit the requirements. Another piece of advice is that if your boxes require painting or decorating before the quotes and items go on, you should do it on your own time. There will not be enough time in class to paint and assemble the items.

We are...influenced by the media

The theme of our project was how television impacted daily life and society in general. The objects that we put on our box, as well as the arrangement of the boxes itself, symbolized the different aspects of impact that television had on society.

The least apparent symbol on our project was the arrangement of boxes itself. We arranged our 4 boxes into the shape of a television, and each box contained a different aspect of television and society. The arrangement of the four boxes is similar to that of the infamous show The Brady Bunch. In the show The Brady Bunch, the opening theme show depicted an arrangement of 9 squares, each with a different member of the family.

We also put the characters of Sesame Street in order to symbolize the importance of educational television for children. Shows that were also educational included Scooby-Doo, which was another stuffed animal that we put on our box. These two shows, among many others, including Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, were considered to be educational. While watching the many adventures that occured in these shows, a "lesson" was presented in each episode that would emphasize the importance of a certain topic. For example, Sesame Street decided to promote health, so they made Cookie Monster go on a diet. These shows were important in shaping the ideals of children in the 1970's-1990's.


We put a clock in one of the boxes in order to symbolize 60 Minutes, which was an influential and important news program. Television was one of the primary sources of news for people as society began to move at a quicker pace and people wanted information fast. 60 Minutes was origninally showed during prime time, beginning at 7 o'clock, which is when most families were home and watching TV. Another popular prime time show was Wheel of Fortune, which was a game show that families watched and participated in together. On our box we put a mini Wheel of Fortune game consule to represent the popularity of this show.

Other items on the box included an old TV remote, and old VHS tape, as well as a pair of antennae. These two items were used to symbolize our society's progress in technology. The difference between the remote from the 1970's and the ones that we see today is very prominent. Also, we rarely see television sets that have antennae anymore. Now we have plasma screen TV sets with satellite technology in order to recieve television channels. The level of sophistication is astounding, and it really makes you think and feel greatful for the technology and level of intelligence that we have today in society.

In addition to the items mentioned, we put clothing as the backdrop of our box in order to represent the influence of TV on fashion as well. People were influenced by what the TV celebreties were wearing and as TV fashion evolved, so did the fashion in society. The placement of the clothings, in the back of the box, also symbolizes how the influence and change was noticible, but it wasn't very prominent. Fashion slowly evolved in order to fit in with the trends that television portrayed, thus we placed the clothing in the backdrop of the box.

We also placed two quotes on our box that symbolized the media's influence on society. The 1970's was a time for change. People's traditional ideals about religion, race, gender issues, and family were evolving, and television was no exception to the trend. The famous black comedian Bill Cosby was a prominent entertainer during the time, and his fame showed society's change in attitude towards race issues. Mr. Cosby said "It isn't a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that's beautiful. " This showed that people were becoming more open and accepting of new ideas, and Mr. Cosby's case in specific, they were becoming more accepting of racial differences. Our second quote was a quote from the Sesame Street Workshop, which showed the influence of educational TV on the ideals of society. The quote explained their decision to promote health, thus leading to Cookie Monster's decision to go on a diet. These two quotes show the great change that TV brought upon society.

In order to find our found art, we had to search in the old dusty boxes that are stacked deep within our houses. Many of the items that we found were came upon by pure chance. We talked to our parents and went to our parent's work places to find the objects. For example, the TV antennae/rabbit ears were lent to us by one of our parent's co-workers.

For next year's class, I strongly recomment doing an abundant amount of research about a variety of themes before choosing a topic. Finding the items is not an easy task, and inquiring about borrowing items takes a long time. My advice would be to find your items in advance so you can find items that are meaningful and important to your topic.

We are... influenced by the media

Our Theme was: the influence of TV and the media on society. There was truly a rise of TV shows and different cultural aspects that influenced how people lived out their lives. We wanted to use our boxes to show that different people were influenced by different shows and aspects of TV.

Finding items was difficult--many people did not have many items that they had kept from the 1970s-90 so we decided to use different items symbolically.

1. You might have noticed that the boxes themselves were an item for us. We got out the middle of each of our 4 boxes and stacked them 2x2. This represented TVs as well as the Brady Bunch because in the beginning of the show, the 9 people came on the screen all in separate TVs. The Brady Bunch portrayed issues such as divorce and remarriage that were not usually discussed on TV. It had an impact in making divorce more "acceptable" to society and such.

2. We also had inside of our boxes an elmo, grover, scooby-doo and zoe doll. These dolls represented popular TV shows such as Scooby-Doo and Seasame Street, which were not only entertainment but in the case of Seasame Street, educational as well.

3. The Mickey Mouse Clock represented 60 minutes (the TV show) because it was an influential news program that was very popular during this time period. Many people watched it to get their daily news.

4. The remote we used was from the 70s, and we used it to contrast how different the TV remotes use to be.

5. The mini wheel of fortune was used to represent the popular game show "Wheel of Fortune."

6. We used the TV antennae because that's how people got different show on their TV.

In addition to these items, we also had clothes to represent how TV influenced society. We used them as the backdrop because clothes were an important aspect of the media and people were influenced by what the stars were wearing, but this influence wasn't "in your face" or too obvious. We also had 2 quotes. The quote from Bill Cosby represented how much change was sparked from TV. People talked about more issues such as race, gender, and etc. more openly, and TV rose to new heights, ignoring all previous limits.

For next year's class, I highly recommend doing LOTS of research about different themes and then settling for what you want to do. Items are hard to find, and if you pick a topic/theme that you can't find many items in, it might be better to do something else. I would also advise them NOT to wait until the last minute to get the items because it takes a lot of effort and time to find something meaningful to put on the box.

By Alee

We are...President Ronald Reagan's presidency

The theme for my project is Ronald Reagan's presidency. It is about what Ronald Reagan did as president. It is also about his life as the president of the United States. For example, the project shows his accomplishments and how he was going to be assassinated.
We chose to use items from Reagan's presidency like articles. It is since the articles depict what he did during his time. Also, it shows what he has down during his time as president. Another item we chose was the picture of the Berlin Wall because he was president when the wall was up.

There were a few methods on how we were able to obtain the found art. We had some help from family who have kept items from the 1980s. Another was found by our neighbors who were willing to lend us their items.
The things I would do differently would probably be to have the courage to travel 100 miles to the Reagan Museum during my free time. Also, be willing to buy things like buttons online. I would also try to decorate the box better and have better prepared box that would fit our design. And, plan better on how the presentation would appear.
My advice would be to obtain the items as early as possible because you will find yourself unable to obtain the items as time passes by. Also, split the work and make sure everyone is on task instead of having one person doing all the work. And, think about your topic really carefully because you want to choose a topic that will allow you to find items easily.

Found Art Project - Technology

Our theme for the Found Art project was technology and we found pieces of technology from 1970 to 1990. Notable companies and the famous products they developed were added to the project. Some of the items included were floppy disks, CD ROMs, an old light bulb, cassette tapes, an old record, and pictures depicting other technological inventions and famous people, including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
To find these items, our group looked around our houses for old technology. Our parents still had some items from the 1970-1990 period and were willing to lend them to us. Several other found art pieces were also given to us by Ms. Sanderson. We were able to gather over ten pieces of found art technology.
I would organize the items on the box pieces differently, giving spreading them across the available sides more evenly and giving a more uniform look. I would have also tried to obtain more found art pieces and pictures of technology and famous inventors or founders of technological companies.
For next year's class, I would recommend gathering found art early on and compiling pictures to use on the project as well. Having a good look on the overall project will leave a positive impression on viewers. I would make sure that all group members contributed equally and every member was satisfied with the end result. Start early, and do not hold the project off until the last possible moment.

The Entertainment and Fun Found Art Boxes

The theme was Fun and Entertainment where my group's main focus was on video games, movies, and popular music.
We mainly tried to find cassettes and videotape of the 70's-80's period, or at least some that represent the time period. Meanwhile Tyler did his video game research and found screenshots of the games from the 70's and 80's.
To obtain the items, we mostly got stuff from our homes, and had friends to find things. Also we used the internet very often to check that the items are indeed from the assigned time period, or just to see what we should be looking for.
What I would have done differently is to choose smaller and less amount of boxes, and plan to have my group work on some day in the weekend instead after school where some of us ended up not being able to show up.
For next year's class, I would suggest to use e-mail and chats to communicate with group members, because that was really effective, and we could send the documents to everyone so everyone knew mostly what was going on. Also spray painting is the quickest way "to paint", but make sure that the boxes are white.

Found Art Project

We are...coming out of the closet and proud of it.

Those who understand the feeling of having to face the fact that they are different, also understand the use of the analogy of the closet. Gay people have faced severe discrimination through the decades but have only recently begun to fiercely protest the discrimination towards them. By openly claiming their sexual orientation, gay people have stepped out of the suffocating closet and into the open world.
We decided to display the opposition towards gay people and the growing support for their rights through 1970-1990. This gives viewers an idea of what the situation was like in that time period. To show opposition of gay rights, there was no other better representation than Anita Bryant, a prominent figure in the 70s-80s in the Save Our Children movement. We obtained pictures of her advocating her anti-gay organization that she founded. We also used several popular quotes that expresses her viewpoint of gay people. To represent hatred, we used a black box for the anti-gay section.
For the important gay supporters, we used pictures, records and posters of Harvey Milk who was a gay political figure in San Francisco and Elton John who admitted he was bisexual in a 1976 interview. These pictures really capture the personality of these two figures. To show the fervor of those times, we used pictures of protests by the Gay Liberation Front and a picture of the Gay Liberation Day March in 1970. To show the importance and role of the media in influencing viewpoints, we had a cover of the movie Longtime Companion (1990) which deals with a gay couple and AIDS. Since the topic of AIDS meshes with the issue of gays, we had four different squares from the AIDS quilt (1987) in Washington DC. All of these squares represent in their own way, the feelings of families and friends of gay and AIDS people. Finally, we had a logo and mission statement from the Human Rights Campaign (formed 1980), showing the support and help that the gay rights movement receives. We obtained these items from our teachers, neighbors, old library exhibits and thrift stores.

The only thing I would do differently is plan ahead and time management so that we could obtain all the items we were hoping to have. Also I would try harder to find more sources to get items from the allotted time period. While assembling, we should have brought more supplies such as tape so that we wouldn't waste time looking for it.

For next year's class, I recommend that you find a topic that really intrigues you so that you will be excited to do this project. Also you could do a topic you do not know much about, as in my case, and end up learning a lot so that you have something worthwhile to take back from this project. As usual time management is key and look hard for found art items. Hopefully, you will learn tons of information about the era just by viewing the found art.

Foud art project: We are..

This U.S. History found art project was all about collecting material from the decades from 1970 to 1990 in order to show, by exposing these object, how a certain aspect of the Americans life was in past.
My group decided to be all about entertainment so we all worked to collect significant milestones to represent the three biggest forms of entertainment: music, video games and movies.
I took particular care about the movies section, since I love this narrative form very much and I learn a lot of interesting facts about the cinema Industry in my Film Literature class.
My items of choice were mostly movie covers, quotes and screen shot and some pieces of merchandise.
I decided to focus on a particular group of movie directors, the film school generation, in particular Steven Spielberg and George Lucas: this is a group of filmmakers who , as their name suggests, studied very deeply how to make the best movie possible and, by the use of special effects, the attention to the wants and desires of their audience and their big inventive, gave birth on the screens to masterpieces like new gangster movie ("The Godfather", "The Untouchables") or amazing science fiction the original Star Wars trilogy, that is the saga that I decided to represent the most. Spielberg is a particular example of very versatile director, since he worked on a lot of different movies, from the very adventurous and entertaining Indiana Jones saga to the deeper, dramatic and at the same time moving story told in "The color Purple".
I collected the carton boxes of the movies both from my teacher and my friends, while I had to buy the Star Wars trilogy.
My project, as told above, was focusing most on Lucas' movie, since the great impact that they had and the fame that they still old is almost a legend and it was really nice going back to its origins, so I collected from he Internet some screen shots of the main characters and also the most memorable quotes, paying attention to avoid spoilers for those he may not have seen the movies yet.
I guess the Star Wars merchandise was the hardest thing to find: my luck is that I have a very busy garage, full of every imaginable thing, here, after a while; I found some candy containers and a very cool tool to make a cake shaped as Star Wars character R2D2.
I'm pretty satisfied with my project, but there are some things that I think could have been improved, for example, I bought modern Star Wars merchandise before looking into the garage, because it was told that there was nothing interesting there.
I also believe it would have been nice having at last a picture of the movie directors that I am mentioning in my project, but there was not that much space on the boxes to put them anyways.
Probably I could also focalize more on a last another saga or movie than Star Wars, but since the theme of my group was entertainment; I decided to stay maybe too close to it.
I hope the next year this project will be one again, because collecting the material and organizing it was really fun; some advices would be at first, look in your garage.
American garages contain almost everything, also potential found art.
The most serious suggestion is to look for an original box design: while most of the people just put the boxes one on the top of another, some students made very original composition, such like a Hamburger container and a nuclear material barrel. I think it was under evaluated the importance f the boxes: they are not just a pedestal or the found art; they can represent the project as well!
So, I wish good luck to the next class who is going to do this project: it was a great overall experience and I'm sure that by listening at the other groups’ presentations it will be even more interesting.

Great Society: Programs

On May 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson named his national idea the Great Society during his speech at the University of Michigan. It was meant to end racial discrimination and poverty. The Congress passed 206 bills that were for the Great Society.  Between 1965 and 1966, Johnson thought of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 because he thought education was the key opener of the Great Society. The act provided over $1 billion in aid to help public schools buy textbooks and any new library materials. The Great Society also changed the way we looked at healthcare. Johnson and the Congress established Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare gave low-cost medical insurance and hospital insurance to any American over the age of 65. Medicaid helped extend health insurance to most of the people under welfare. The Great Society has also changed housing. The Congress had given enough money to build around 240,000 units of low-rent public housing. It also helped families with low income to pay for better private housing. Around the same time, they established the Department of housing and Urban Development with Robert Weaver as the Secretary. He was also the first African-American to obtain a cabinet seat.The Great Society even had an effect on immigration. The first two bills were the Immigration Act of 1924 and the National Origins Act of 1924. They were meant to build  immigration quotas to about 150,000 people annually. Though, it dsicrimated against the southern and eastern Europeans as well as the Asians. For the environment, the Congress passed the Water Quality Act of 1965 which required states to clean their rivers. Johnson also ordered the government to find the biggest polluters in the nation. There was also consumer protection along with the Great Society. Companies were fiven standards before they sold their products.

Berlin Crisis and the Bay of Pigs

During the 1950s Cuba's government faced a drastic change. A group of rebels led by Fidel Castro wanted to take down current dictator Fulgencio Batista. Once in power Castro publicly stated his goal to improve Cuban conditions. The United States although skeptical respected the new government, until Castro provoked the US by nationalizing US owned oil refineries and sugar plantations. This combined with an increased dependence on Soviet Aid started to worry the Eisenhower Administration.




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The close proximity of Cuba's communist government to the United States heightened Cold War Tensions.

With Castro also started exiling his opponents to the United States, which gave birth to the Cuba counterrevolution movement. In early 1960, Dwight D. Eisenhower allowed the CIA to invade Cuba with Cuban exiles. Eisenhower and the CIA wanted to catalyze a massive uprising against Castro which would overthrow the Communist government. When Kennedy was elected, he was nervous but approved what Eisenhower had started. On April 17, 1961 the plan began. Nothing went correctly since Cuba knew about what the US thought would be a surprise attack. The Cubans outnumbered the relatively poorly equipped Cuban Exiles, and the US forces had to surrender. Although the US was embarrassed on a world scale, Kennedy's popularity soared when he publicly took the blame.



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Lines of Cuban exiles who were captured in the failed invasion of Cuba


In Germany, the US and USSR found another battleground, Berlin. Over 3 million Berliners had left East Germany through West Berlin, located in the heart of the Soviet German sector. Many of those who left held prominent jobs and were of consierable intelligence. This so called "brain drain" led USSR leader Khrushchev to propose cutting off West Berlin from West Germany, which Kennedy was adamently opposed to. Kennedy spoke to the US and told them as a nation that they must have access to West Berlin so it does not fall into Soviet hands. The US had superior nucler abilities so instead of cutting off West Berlin from West Germany, Khruschev put up the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin to stop the flow of Germans into West Germany. This wall started as Barbed wire and was later constructed as a large concrete wall with a death zone filled with landmines. This resolution was relieving to Kennedy as he did not have to go to war and the Soviets were pleased with their plan.



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This photo was taken during the initial construction of the Berlin Wall.