Students in Hannah Reimer’s seventh grade English class at the University School of Milwaukee are learning about the Holocaust, creating memorial projects with the help from Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design faculty, and presenting the projects at MIAD May 25 and 26.
Before designing their own memorials, students read novels about teens in the Holocaust, studied international examples of memorials and visited a local memorial sculpture. Their projects explore why and how we remember the Holocaust, examining why these stories need to be told.
“In a sense they were responding to their assigned novels through art, and examined art as catharsis, a way to remember, to mourn and educate,” Reimer. said.
Through collaboration with MIAD design faculty, students are provided with feedback on their projects, “they are shocked and thrilled that actual college professors are interested in their ideas and their work, and they also work so much harder knowing that their final products will be judged by real-life artists and taken so seriously." said Reimer. "It is the best motivator."
Students sent their thumbnail sketches to a panel of artists, including MIAD professor Nicole Hauch, on April 25. The final posters are presented to a panel of judges led by Dale Shidler, chair 2D/4D Design at MIAD, on May 25 and 26. Hauch visits USM’s campus as the students progress and helps them with the visual components of their projects.
“Collaborating with MIAD’s faculty has completely changed the atmosphere in my seventh-grade classroom. The learning is now in the hands of the students, and that has greatly empowered them. I am not the expert, I am just a facilitator,” said Reimer.
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