Black Girl Art: Refusal and Reimagining Through Arts-Based Research

• In Event: Artist Salons as Sites of Unforgetting: Reimagining Liberatory-Education through Plays, Film, Poetry, Novella, and Collage

Abstract

Building with Black and Indigenous theories of refusal (Simpson, 2007; Shange, 2019; ross, 2021), and Keisha Green’s (2020) theory of arts-based research as a form of “otherwise work,” this demonstration will highlight how Black girls and women engage in artistic practices, including poetry and collage, to reflect on their learning experiences and imagine justice-based realities for Black girls in schools. This demonstration will feature a digital gallery spotlighting art created by research collaborators (a multigenerational group of Black girls and women) that represent their vision of reimagined schools, which they intentionally designed to center and sustain Black girls. Additionally, this demonstration will include a performance/recitation of poems written as reflections and forms of poetic inquiry (Leavy, 2015) by project collaborators throughout our broader study, and poems inspired by my research collaborators' stories which I wrote as a form of poetic analysis throughout the study .

This demonstration draws from a qualitative study designed around humanizing ethnographic methods (Paris & Winn, 2014) and arts based research design (Barone & Eisner, 2012), which centers the lives and learning experiences of three groups of Black women and girls (ages 14-32). While learning from the Black women and girls in this study about their learning experiences within and beyond schools, a common theme that arose was the practice of refusal. Through group dialogues, one-on-one interviews, and individual and collaborative art making (poetry, collage, self-portraits, and more) my research collaborators discussed the refusals they made throughout their schooling experiences to reject and disrupt ways they observed and experienced Black girls being framed as illegible (Spillers, 1987) in the context of schools. To honor the significance of these refusals, we engaged in arts based research and analysis as a methodological refusal of traditional qualitative research methods, and in order to imagine more justice-based realities for Black girls in schools. Together, we used our ongoing practice of art-making to engage in the Black feminist work of “feelin” (Judd, 2023), and to collectively imagine otherwise possibilities for the future of education.

Extant literature in Black Girlhood Studies shows that refusals Black girls enact toward oppressive systems often take shape through artistic mediums ranging from poetry to playwriting (Winn, 2010, 2011; Discussant, 2013; Cox, 2014; Kelly, 2020). This pattern of Black girls using art as a medium through which to enact refusals affirmed the use of arts based research in this study as a methodological practice that helps foster refusals and cultivates opportunities for imagining otherwise ways of learning and being. Also, by recognizing these artistic refusals as part of a long tradition in Black art spaces and movements, this study also highlights the longstanding practice of using art as tool for reimagining our present conditions, the institutions we navigate, our hopes for the future (Kelly, 2002; Benjamin, 2024). Further, this practice of reimagining helps us to envision the spaces of refuge, care, and creativity that we seek to create, thus honoring the legacy of Harlem Renaissance salons like the Dark Tower.

Author

• Jazmen Moore, Stony Brook University - SUNY