Artist Identity, Creative Agency, and Activism

• In Event: Students, Teachers, and Young Artists: Their Burgeoning Identities and Embodied Learning

Abstract

Within this paper, the author presents findings from a research study with teens in an arts internship in New Orleans to illustrate how some young artists navigate questions in consideration of their creative agency through their burgeoning identities as artists who engage in activism. The author describes how the use of social practice theory of identity and agency to interpret activist artist identity work within the research. Then, the author describes how the use of portraiture as methodology within the study. Finally, the author presents data and analysis of findings of the study through the contexts, narratives, activities, and consequences of activist artist identity work.

Author

• Sarah T Travis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign