PGH Writes: Making Art About Family — A Multimedia Workshop with Grace (ge) Gilbert

About the Workshop

In this two-hour, generative and hands-on workshop, we will discuss the ethics of artmaking when it comes to family relationships, trauma, secrets, memories, and more. We will look at models of artists and writers who have engaged with family topics in their published work toward the end of exploring prompts across genres. Students will have an opportunity to respond to these prompts with writing, multimedia collage, or both.

Register for the workshop here

Materials

Please bring with you an assortment of pieces from your family archive that you could use in collaging or writing. Note: the best way to do this is to make multiple photocopies of the original material so that you can play around and keep the original safe.

Here are some examples of common things that students have brought to class that represent their archive:

• Family and historical photographs / copies or scans printed out

• Printed scans of notes, letters, journal entries, records, government documents, etc

• Printed scans of inherited objects– buttons, trinkets, collectable items, etc

• Collage-able meaningful personal ephemera– dried flowers, string, scraps or swatches, etc