The resource supports teachers working with young people to consider the impact gender, race, class, religion, disability, culture, and politics has on our sense of self. What is it to be Oneself? delves into Afrofuturism and digital culture, using the process of collage to normalise fluid exploratory approaches to the formation, deconstruction and reformation of identity. It offers ways we might imagine liberated futures where everyone can live freely and thrive.
‘Collage is a way to draw together a multitude of materials found in our daily lives. The process of layering and remixing mirrors our fluctuating, ever evolving identities, allowing us to experience them as both fragmented and unified. Collage enables us to time travel, to collect archival material and place it alongside contemporary imagery. It can also be a metaphor for repair and healing.’
– Dr. Jade de Montserrat
Presented in print and digital versions, the resource features critical questions, creative exercises, sources of support and a short story by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. It folds out into a poster designed by Jade de Montserrat which combines a quote from the 19th century abolitionist Sojourner Truth with the Progress Pride flag. This juxtaposition stresses how historical struggles can provide sustenance for contemporary campaigns.
The artist has created a selection of music to accompany Cracks in the Curriculum: What is it to be Oneself? and a series of recommendations for further study.
Cracks in the Curriculum is a multi-part series that addresses themes missing from or misrepresented in the UK school curriculum. It brings together artists, educators and organisers to ask how we can use creativity to collectively address pressing social issues.
With special thanks to Sai Murray and Annick Météfia, Voices that Shake!, Allana Grant Mermaids UK, Lukasz Konieczka, Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust, Sabrina Jones, Chloe Filani and Kate Thackara.
Cracks in the Curriculum is supported by John S Cohen Foundation.
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Artist Bio
Dr. Jade de Montserrat is an artist based in the North of England concerned with challenging structures of care in institutions and with the intersection of gender, race, class and colonialism, often in the context of life in rural communities. She makes artworks (performance, drawing, painting, film, installation, sculpture, print and text) that explore the vulnerability of bodies, the importance of recording and preserving history, and the tactile and sensory qualities of language. Her work combines words and fractured images of her body to voice personal experiences of exploitation and violation at the hands of individuals and institutions. Her practice often incorporates texts by black writers such as Édouard Glissant and bell hooks and material alluding to the violent legacy of colonialism. She believes in art as a direct form of action and an agent of change and is committed to drawing as an affordable and immediate tool to achieve this.
