Middle East Poster Project
A Boston-area art student emailed to tell me about a project that’s produced a series of striking posters. This description is from their About Us page:
Although the authors of this website come from many different places, we are a group of students from Lesley University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some students are from The Art Institute of Boston, and some are from Lesley College, both part of the University. In January 2007 about twenty of us all traded in our winter vacation to take a three credit, three-week intensive class titled Modern Middle East History. The subject matter was completely new to us and honestly we didn’t even know what that term even meant without stereotyping.
In only three weeks the class has learned a ton of information from lectures by our Professor Jo-Anne Hart, as well as several movies, documentaries, slide shows, maps, and many reliable web sources. Together as a class we have learned about:
a) the evolution and formation of the middle east
b) European imperialism, Islamic reform, nationalism, and
c) more contemporary issues such as the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iranian Revolution, the Iraq war, and US policy in the Middle East.It turned out that these events and topics were not completely new to us. As Americans we are constantly overwhelmed with images of the Middle East through our television sets. As college students living in New England, we have a good sense of what is valid or trustworthy information. Before doing any research many of us can assume that what we hear on the news is false.
Thanks to this class, we have a much clearer view of the issues in the Middle East both currently and in the not so distant past. We have gained an ability to take matters into our own hands. We realize that accurate information does exist and it is out responsibility to find it and use it to spread the word, and offer help to peace in the Middle East.
The result of this 2007 Lesley winter session class is a web project completed by a small group of LU students of all different ages, backgrounds, and beliefs. The website is an attempt to showcase our new understanding of the Middle East, through a poster project.
Two things in particular interest me about this project. One is the artistry involved in humanizing complex political issues. The other is the ability, within a short three-week period, to learn how to approach in a more serious way previously unexplored controversial topics.
Each poster has a useful description of the background, with some links to other sources.
Nice job!
