Molly Fulop (they/she) is an aspiring LGBTQ+ arts-based curriculum developer who is interested in the impacts of intergenerational and collaborative artmaking on LGBTQ+ people and the possibilities of teaching these curricula in non-traditional education spaces like community centers and museums. They work closely with The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project in Chicago, IL and the Rollins Museum of Art in Winter Park, FL on these topics. Their hope is to use their work to combat anti-LGBTQ+ censorship legislation.
(Re)Generating Queer Curriculum: Fostering Epistemic Agency Through Intergenerational LGBTQ+ Artmaking
The goal of this thesis project is to explore the potential for LGBTQ+ intergenerational arts-based curriculum to foster epistemic agency in 32 LGBTQ+ young and older adults. Here, young adults describes participants between 19 and 26 and older adults describes participants between 57 and 81. Within epistemology, the study of knowledge and how knowledge is made, epistemic agency describes the ability of minoritized individuals to see themselves and other members of their community as agents who can access, learn from, and be affirmed in the value of their own and each other’s lived experiences. Within education theory, epistemic agency describes students’ ability to self-direct their learning processes and bolster their capacity for knowledge creation. While still in progress, this study suggests an equivalency between these understandings within the context of LGBTQ+ epistemic agency and proposes intergenerational collaborative artmaking as a central method.
This thesis project is being completed in collaboration with The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project and seeks to further its facilitators’ recent research on LGBTQ+ epistemic agency through the lens of art education. This thesis project is currently in the second of three parts and will span a total of three semesters. The first involved co-designing the curriculum with SAIC faculty member and Dialogue Project facilitator Dr. Karen Morris throughout Fall 2022. The current phase consists of co-teaching the curriculum alongside Dr. Morris and conducting two sets of one-on-one interviews with participants at the midpoint and immediately following this semester. The final phase will occur during Summer 2023 and will involve preparing a research manuscript and creating a section specific to this study on The Dialogue Project’s existing website to improve the accessibility of this research by the larger LGBTQ+ and allied communities.
#1 Group photo of the Spring 2023 Dialogue Project members posing at Gerber/Hart Library & Archives during a class visit.
#2 Photo of two small artmaking groups engaging with research materials at Gerber/Hart to inspire and inform their artworks.
#3 Zine pages from the first artmaking activity on Dialogue Project members' engagement with LGBTQ+ art.
#4 Photo of a small artmaking group discussing ideas and sharing materials for their artwork at the Center on Addison.
#5 Photo of a small artmaking group constructing comment boxes for their artwork at the Center on Addison.