Cultural Identity

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Task Process Step 1: Contextual research Step 2: Visual research Step 3: ID banners or cultural passports Step 4: Homework or extension
	Task Use mixed media to create a piece of work that expresses your cultural roots and identity. It should represent both the public and private you in answer to the question - "Who in the world...?". We are identified by many things: our accent, language, nickname, favourite band, dress style, likes and dislikes, the team we support, our ethnic group, country of origin, family background and history, school, religion, or political beliefs. Official documents like birth certificates, travel passes and passports authenticate our public identity, giving us certain rights, denying us others. Make a collection of things that give clues to your cultural identity - include documents like maps, passports and an ID photo. Scan, digitally photograph or draw the most significant of these. Choose the images that tell the story of who in the world you are ...

	Process Look at the work of three contemporary black British artists who explore their cultural roots in their work; make a collection of your personal cultural artefacts and images; use ICT to assemble these as digital montages; collage printouts of the best montages onto banners 30cm wide by your height; hang and exhibit all the class banners together as an installation; alternatively make a personal cultural passport to display the photomontages.
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Step 1	Contextual research

	Click on the picture below for a short PowerPoint presentation about the work of three contemporary black British artists whose work explores their cultural identities: Chris Ofili, Sonia Boyce and Chila Burman. Find out more about them by going to the weblinks on the last slide or do your own Internet search. [595 KB]


	Try some interactive exercises to see how much you know about Ofili's work at some point during the project. Click on either of the pictures below for a link to the exercises.


	Improve your internet research skills with this series of activities based on the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's double self-portrait, 'The Two Fridas', which explores her dual cultural heritage and upbringing.
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Step 2	Visual research [Digital collages]

	Use any of the techniques that you are familiar with to make digital collages from the images that you have collected: the Mixed Media Collage project gives ideas on how to develop a montage using scans and digital images. You can also look at the step-by-step help for combining images using Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro (see the tutorials on Compositing and Joining Images).

	A detail and the finished cultural ID montage, which combines a portrait, scanned fabric, two maps, hands painted for Eid, script, song title and favourite film/music references.
	Alternatively, a simple graphic image can be made by combining your portrait with a scan of a favourite textile, in this case one that has a cultural and personal significance, suggesting current street style, retro fashion or ethnicity.

	Open a portrait shot and use any selection tool to delete the background: for accuracy try the Polygonal Lasso Tool and use the Eraser at a small brush setting to clean up the outline. Zoom in to about 200% to see what you are doing more clearly. Save your work with a new filename as a PSD or PSP layered file. The original image will be intact. Duplicate the background layer. Convert the image to greyscale: Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. Increase the contrast either by using Image > Adjustments > Levels (drag the sliders and preview the effect) or Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast Make the image more graphic by adding a filter: Filter > Stylize > Find Edges Increase the contrast again to make the lines stronger.

	Open your textile scan or scan it now: File > Import > select your TWAIN source (i.e. the name of your scanner). Check the dimensions against those of the image you are working on: Image > Image Size. Although you do not need to change these sizes, be aware that the textile image needs to be at least as large as the portrait in order to fill it. Drag the textile onto the portrait or copy and paste it: Selections > Select All > edit > Copy (on the textile); Edit > Paste (on the portrait). Note: If you can't drag the textile onto the portrait in Photoshop, check the image mode - it should be RGB not Indexed: Image > Mode > click RGB if it is not already checked.
	Drag the textile layer below the duplicate portrait layer. Delete the background by making the duplicate portrait layer active first: select the Magic Wand at a low Tolerance e.g. 5 (as the background on this layer has already been deleted) and click on the background areas. Then make the textile layer active and choose Cut on the Edit menu.
	Finally, use a Layer Blending Mode on the top layer (Background copy): to emphasize the linear effect I used Linear Burn. Save your work, then flatten the layers and save it as a JPEG: Layer > Flatten Image; File > Save As. You may also need to change the size and save a smaller version, depending on intended outcome.

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Step 3	ID banners or cultural passports
	Banners For the banners cut a length of paper from a roll or use canvas or white sheeting depending on the availability of resources. The dimensions for individual banners should reflect your own height, but group banners could be an average 150cm long. A suggested width is 30 cm, which is also the longest side of a piece of A4 paper. Printouts of montages can be pasted onto paper banners and protected with a coating of PVA glue thinned in water. Dowelling or lengths of bamboo can be used for the top and bottom supports. If funding allows, use heat transfer paper and iron the designs onto fabric or canvas banners. Extra resources: information about heat transfer printing onto fabric. A cheaper, though less effective method, is to print directly onto small pieces of canvas fed through the printer with a sheet of thin card and to fix the prints onto the banner with adhesive or stitching like a patchwork. Alternatively, print onto sheets of acetate (make sure your printer options include an appropriate setting for transparency film) and fix these panels together into a vertical banner shape (e.g. with an eye punch and thin wire or other suitable fixing) to hang in front of a light source such as a window.


'Speaking For Ourselves: Making Our Mark' was the outcome of an artist's residency funded by the Whitechapel Gallery. The installation, which was shown in the education room at the gallery, was a collaboration between myself and a group of Bengali and Bangladeshi girls from Mulberry School in Tower Hamlets. It consisted of 14 canvas banners which had been transfer-printed with black and white life-size self-portraits of the students and onto which a sequence of colour slides depicting their dual cultural identities was projected to a soundtrack of their voices.
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	Cultural Passports Current European Union UK passports are 124mm x 87mm. You may want to make yours the exactly same size for conceptual authenticity and instant visual identification. Decide on the total number of pages and cut paper twice the width, but the same length i.e. 124mm x 174mm. For a ten-page passport you need five sheets. The cover should extend well beyond the page dimensions to allow for folding over. Extra resources: a simple instruction sheet. Paste montages cropped to size onto the pages and design a cover with your own coat-of-arms. If this is your main outcome you may want to compose montages to size at step 2. The centre-fold image should be 124mm x 174mm. If you want to print the montages directly onto your pages, rather than simply gluing them in, make a dummy book with plain paper first. Number the pages, making a note of what should go on each and the orientation of the image. Extra resources: instructions on making a five-page folded book from a single A4 or A3 sheet. It will measure 106mm x 74mm from an A4 sheet, or 150mm x 104mm from A3. If you want the booklet to be passport-sized, start with a sheet of paper 348mm x 248mm.

	Extra resources: http://www.arts.ufl.edu/art/rt_room/sketchbk/sketching.html These pages on the University of Florida's art education website give hints on how to start keeping a sketchbook. They have examples of artists' books and instructions on how to make your own.
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Step 4	Homework or extension
	Decorate a portrait digitally with patterns or dots made using the Paint brush tools in the style of Aboriginal art or the three featured artists . Always create a new layer so that mistakes can easily be discarded. This is a good way for pupils to practise mouse or stylus control.


	Decorate paper collages with paints or pens in sketchbooks for homework.

	The collages above were made by pupils with Special Educational Needs after seeing an exhibition of Chris Ofili's paintings.
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