Art theme: identity

Artists think carefully about how to express identity when constructing an image of a person, whether creating images of themselves or someone else. It's important to consider how to convey someone's personality and qualities, interests and beliefs in an artwork. How can an artist show the things that are important to that person? How can they help viewers gain a sense of their experiences, culture and background?

Artists give viewers an insight into a person's unique identity in all manner of ways. For instance, in figurative art, artists may make use of features such as clothing, hairstyle and accessories, as well as facial expressions, gestures and pose. The objects and background they portray with their subject can also help cast light on a person's identity.

Look, describe and discuss

Open a full-screen version of the zoomable image in a new window.

Ask your students to describe the artwork, encouraging them to simply say what they can see.

You can start by showing the whole image, and then use the zoom feature to explore details of the artwork. Or you might like to start by using the zoom feature to show a detail from the image, and then zoom out to see more.

Encourage your students to look carefully – this is their superpower! It's best to not give too much background information about the artwork at this stage, so students can develop their own ideas and opinions.

An audio description of the artwork is available to listen to during this stage. It is accompanied by a full written transcript which can also be used to describe the artwork.

Nudge questions

Now when looking at the artwork, ask more specific ('nudge') questions:

• How many figures can you spot in this artwork? Can you see the same figure repeated?
• What do you notice when you look closely at the smaller figures?
• Is this a realistic portrait? Why/why not?
• How do the colours used in this artwork make you feel? Why?

Questions from The Superpower of Looking Kit

Now we can start to explore the 'elements' of the artwork.

For this artwork, you will focus on the following areas from The Superpower of Looking Kit:

• Composition
• Colour
• Figures

Ask your students to evidence their points:

• where exactly are they looking when they make a statement?
• can everybody see what they see?
• slow down, take time to really look closely

You can introduce knowledge from the contextual background for teachers while asking these bespoke questions with helpful responses which can be found in the teachers' notes.

Everyone learning

You can find out more about The Superpower of Looking SEND/ASD/ALN/ASN approach on the Superpower homepage.

Now it's time to explore the artwork in different ways. This list of sensory activities encourages students to apply their learning and can suit a variety of learning needs.

Make
We suggest creative activities for all learners, including a tactile option to support students with vision impairment: these activities explore the tactile qualities of materials or involve gestural mark-making to further explore the artwork.

• Ask students to provide a photo of themselves. Photocopy the photos, printing multiple black and white copies. Students can draw over the photocopies with oil pastels to add clothing or accessories which represent the different aspects of their lives, such as sports kit, dancewear, religious clothing or favourite fashions. Next, invite students to arrange the different pictures together to form one whole portrait. Glue them onto a larger sheet of paper when they have finalised their arrangements. Encourage students to think about the repetition of colours and the shape their assembled photos will take. 
• Tactile option: fold a sheet of A4 paper into four. Cover each quarter in your own choice of marks to represent different aspects of your personality. (Are they dots, stripes, scribbles or spirals? Will you make thick or thin marks with a pen, pencil or crayon?) Cut or tear the paper into strips about 1 cm wide and 10 cm long. Coat a strip of paper in glue, then wrap it around an elastic band to form a bead. Use elastic bands that are large enough to slip onto the wrist. Repeat until you have about 10 beads around the elastic band, or the band is full.

Experience

• Gather bangles and bracelets, wearing them as the artist does in her self-portrait. Explore the sensations as the bangles move on students' wrists and as they rest their heads on their hands. Consider weight, sound and texture, and whether they feel warm or cold on their skin.
• Listen to the audio description of the artwork.

• Explore music from Hindi Cinema (Bollywood) with your class with this playlist of hit songs from the 1970s.

Communicate

• Ask students to think of an aspect of their personality (e.g. confident, shy, funny, sporty). Challenge them to communicate this through pose and facial expressions without talking.
• Students each choose a figure from the artwork. Their talking partner must then ask questions to guess which figure they have chosen, asking only questions with a yes/no answer (as in the board game Guess Who?). How many questions do they need to ask to guess the correct answer?

Final stage: review

Ask your students to:

• share their sketchbooks in groups and discuss the 'elements' they have identified
• choose an element/aspect they find most interesting about the artwork and record it in their sketchbooks
• choose their own name/s for the title of the artwork
• think of a question they would like to ask the artist

Congratulations!

You have now completed this lesson resource on The Superpower of Looking.