Cat Hudgens
Author: Cat Hudgens | Majors: Philosophy & Art | Semester: Fall 2022
My name is Cat Hudgens and I am a member of Fulbright College, majoring in philosophy and sculpture. For my fall 2022 research, I was mentored by Louis Hancox, the Director of Career Innovation. My research team and I collaborated with Arkansas Arts Academy in an effort to spread awareness and provoke social justice through the arts. The awareness of this topic of research is vital not only to future generations as they move through the world, but to the progression of interdisciplinary studies. My intention is to consider how this experience can inform and mold my art career as I move into a graduate program.
The two other members of my research group and I worked in partnership with Arkansas Arts Academy high school in Rogers. Our goal was to work collaboratively with students to research how social justice can be explored through the arts. By presenting our research on how social justice has been achieved through dance, music, visual art, and sound, we aimed to provide a space for students to explore ideas that they may not have been exposed to. Our hope was to motivate students to express concepts that were important to them through a medium of their choosing.
My research mentor approached me with this project with the knowledge that I am completing a degree in the arts. I jumped at the opportunity to pursue this research because of the importance of using art to challenge thought. Further, this project combined two subjects to create an interdisciplinary space, which is of great importance to a holistic learning environment. My mentor, as well as the other members of the research committee all provided unique backgrounds to further inform a cross-disciplinary approach. This strategy was effective for reaching students of many backgrounds and at different stages in their craft.
This opportunity allowed me to expand my own knowledge of social justice issues through many mediums. For example, fashion was used as a medium to pressure the government into taking action during the AIDS crisis. The development of a cure and support for marginalized gay men was not prioritized at this time, so fashion was used to fight this injustice, as AIDS took the lives of many designers and artists. Further, our historical perception of ‘the housewife’ was built through the fashion and beauty industries. Women didn’t shave until razor companies realized they could double their audience if they also marketed to women. Women were told how to dress, look, and behave to fit into the heavily crafted, unattainable societal expectation.
During my research, I also discovered how sound art is used to call attention to social justice issues. In his project, “Isflad”, Jacob Kirkegaard created a soundscape of melting icebergs, displayed at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Kirkegaard commented that he wanted to “…provide a way for the visitor to simply listen to and absorb this phenomena, to experience and reflect on the constant flux of nature’s inexorable forces.”
The research in collaboration with the Arkansas Arts academy was an opportunity to explore a broad range of topics and share these ideas with the students. I hope to continue this collaborative research by connecting with the students on the issues that they are most drawn to. After a presentation, we had the opportunity to sit and talk with the students about how they perceived the attitudes of their generation towards art-making for social justice. This led to a stimulating conversation where the students could talk freely about their opinions, which led me to feel very connected with them. Research in social justice and the arts is valuable not only for advocating for social justice issues and interdisciplinary studies, but for the connections it can forge between people.