What Is Your War? Teen Event
Jul 18, 2015
New York City teens enjoy a collaborative art making activity in the Floor 5 outdoor gallery. Photograph by Filip Wolak
On July 18, 100 New York City teens attended What Is Your War? a free event organized by Youth Insights Leaders. First the Leaders gave a talk on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s piece “Untitled” (Love Letter From The War Front) (1988) and then led a collaborative art making activity in the outdoor gallery on Floor 5. “Untitled” (Love Letter From The War Front) is made of a jigsaw puzzle. On the puzzle, there is a letter written by the artist to his boyfriend who was dying from AIDS. After the talk, Youth Insights Leaders invited teens to explore the Floor 5 galleries and see how other artists responded to the AIDS crisis.
YI Leaders Janice and Zeus discuss Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Love Letter From The War Front) (1988). Photograph by Filip Wolak
For the art making activity, teens were invited to create their own “Love Letter From The War Front.” There was a table filled with blank puzzle pieces and colored pencils for teens to explore any issue that personally affects them. Teens made puzzles about racial inequality, immigration, and equal pay for men and women and then contributed one piece of their own work to a master puzzle. Made up of pieces by twenty-eight teens, this new puzzle symbolized the different "wars" occurring in the lives of New York City youth.
The master puzzle. Photograph by Filip Wolak
Just like Felix Gonzalez-Torres, teens are battling their own wars in their everyday lives. What Is Your War? was a huge success and I am looking forward to more teen events in the future!
By Tiffany, YI participant