Teaching About Asia - June 2009

Teaching About Asia Newsletter

June 2009

"Welcome," an outdoor installation by artist Choi Jeong-Hwa, is part of
LACMA's "Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea" exhibition
(Photo by Marshall Astor, used under Creative Commons license)

If you have passed by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) lately, you will have noticed that the Ahmanson Building is swathed in strips of red, blue and yellow fabric.  The installation by artist Choi Jeong-Hwa is part of the museum's just-opened exhibition entitled "Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea."  Along with two other outdoor installations by Choi, the exhibition features video, computer animation, and sculpture by cutting-edge Korean artists and will be open through September 6.  The Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena continues its exploration of Japanese animation with its Anime Film Festival - through August, anime films will be screened in the museum's outdoor courtyard and is free with gallery admission.

Are you looking for a professional development opportunity for the fall?  We will be holding our Fall 2009 "East Asia and in My Classroom" professional development seminar in Los Angeles, and seminar overviews and schedules will be forthcoming.  You are encouraged to visit the "K-12 Curriculum" section of our website, where we will post seminar announcements as soon as they are available. 

Please share this newsletter with your colleagues and encourage them to subscribe (go to our newsletter subscription page and select the “K-12 Education” subscriber category).

 In this issue:

♦  Summertime Museum Exhibitions and Programs  ♦
♦  New Documentary Films on East Asia  ♦
♦  Museum Exhibitions on Asia  ♦
♦  Teachers on Asia  ♦

♦  Summertime Museum Exhibitions and Programs

→  LACMA - Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea

Dates: June 28 through September 6, 2009
Location: 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036; exhibition shown at Japanese Pavilion
Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday 12 to 8 pm; Friday 12 to 9 pm; Wednesday closed
Admission: Adults $12; seniors (62+) and students $8; children 17 and under free
Education coordinator: Alicia Vogl Saenz, 323-857-6512

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) will present the first major museum exhibition in the United States to focus on contemporary art from South Korea. The exhibition features work by a generation of artists who have emerged since the mid-1980s, some well-known and others on the brink of recognition, working on the cutting edge of international art trends and within a distinctly Korean context.

Featuring site-specific installations as well as video, computer animation, and sculpture, the exhibition represents each artist through a large-scale installation piece or substantial body of work.  A series of lectures and discussions will also be presented in conjunction with the exhibition.

Artists Do Ho Suh and Choi Jeong-Hwa have both been recently profiled in the Los Angeles Times.

→  Pacific Asia Museum - Anime Film Festival

Dates: Click here for film information
Location: 46 North Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Admission: Adults $7; students/seniors $5; free every 4th Friday of the month
Education coordinator: Amelia Chapman, 626-449-2742, ext.19 

The Pacific Asia Museum will be screening anime films all summer.  Enjoy extended gallery hours and films screened under the stars in the museum’s courtyard garden with introductions by animation historian Charles Solomon. This is an outdoor event, so beach chairs, blankets and picnics are welcome.

Please note: Some films contain mature content and are not recommended for children under the age of 13. Please check listings for film rating.

Film screenings are free for members and for non-member are included with museum admission.

♦  New Documentary Films on East Asia

 

 

 

•  HBO - China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

A vivid and candid look at the human toll of last year's devastating earthquake in central China, this 40-minute verité documentary visits with the parents of deceased children from several district schools a few days after the disaster, sharing in their unimaginable grief at the loss of a child (for most, their only child). Check your HBO station for airtimes.

•  PBS - Wings of Defeat

Brings viewers behind the scenes of World War II’s Pacific theater to reveal the truth about the Kamikaze - the “suicide bombers” of their day. Interviews with surviving kamikaze, rare battle footage and Japanese propaganda reveal a side of WWII never before shown on film. American vets from the greatest generation tell harrowing tales of how they survived attacks. Check your local PBS station for airtimes.

♦  Museum Exhibitions on Asia

•  The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens - Treasures through Six Generations: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy from the Weng Collection

Dates: Through July 13, 2009
Location: 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108, Boone Gallery
Hours, admission and contact information: Click here

Assembled primarily during the 19th century, the Weng Collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy has survived more than a century of dynastic changes and warfare.  The exhibition presents 42 masterworks of Chinese painting and calligraphy created over a period of 900 years.

•  Pacific Asia Museum - The Samurai Re-Imagined: From Ukiyo-e to Anime

Dates: Through August 9, 2009

Location: 46 North Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Admission: Adults $7; students/seniors $5; free every 4th Friday of the month
Education coordinator: Amelia Chapman, 626-449-2742, ext.19 

Explores the roots of the popular Japanese art forms of manga (graphic novels) and anime (animation) in the traditional arts of Japan by examining images of the iconic warrior, the samurai.

 

•  Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) - Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles: Selections from the Mary Hunt Kahlenberg Collection

Dates: Through September 6, 2009

Location: 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036; exhibition shown at Japanese Pavilion
Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday 12 to 8 pm; Friday 12 to 9 pm; Wednesday closed
Admission: Adults $12; seniors (62+) and students $8; children 17 and under free
Education coordinator: Alicia Vogl Saenz, 323-857-6512

More than ninety works highlighting Indonesia's rich and diverse textile traditions dating from the early fifteenth through twentieth centuries. Extremely rare textiles that have been radiocarbon dated to as early as 1403 will be shown.

•  Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) - Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea

Dates: Through September 21, 2009

The first major museum exhibition in the United States to focus on contemporary art from South Korea. Features a generation of artists who have emerged since the mid-1980s working on the cutting edge of international art trends and within a distinctly Korean context.

•  Pacific Asia Museum - Discovering Ganesha: Remover of Obstacles

Dates: Through September 20, 2009

Ganesha, the so-called “Elephant God,” is one of the most adored and widely worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon. In a series of photographs, New York-based artist Shana Dressler investigates contemporary Ganesha festivals in Mumbai.

•  Bowers Museum - Masters of Adornment: The Miao People of China

Dates: Ongoing

Location: 2002 North Main St., Santa Ana, CA 92706
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm; open late the fourth Thursday of every month until 8:00 pm
Admission: Adults $12; seniors (62+), students and children (6-17) $9; children under 6 free
Education coordinator: Linda Kahn, 714-567-3679

Exquisite textiles and silver jewelry highlight the beauty and wealth of the Miao peoples of southwest China. Symbols of status and culture include finely pleated skirts, complex batik pattered cloth, intricate silk embroidery and shining textiles woven with metal.

♦  Teachers on Asia

•  Asia in My Classroom Discussion Forum

Teachers of all levels and subjects are invited to join our "Asia in My Classroom" forum. To become a registered user (enabling you to post to the board), please e-mail us your request along with your name, school, and the grades and subjects you teach.  What teachers have been talking about:

 

→  On environmental studies about Asia: "Tried out an interesting assignment in my Environmental Studies class a few weeks ago... I assigned them a study of Mt. Everest. They were to analyze the various routes for climbing the mountain, the political problems surrounding such an undertaking, and what the effect has been on the mountain since so many more people are making the climb... All in all there was a great deal learned about many aspects of life in the area, geography, and how not to treat a mountain."

- Martha Seeger, Pio Pico Span School

→  On teaching Chinese idioms: "Besides folk tales, I have used Chinese idioms and fable stories in my Chinese class. These Chinese idioms are called Chengyu [and] ... consists of four characters. For example: 井底之蛙 (jing di zhi wa) literally means 'a frog in a well.'  However, it has a deeper meaning than that - it implies a person with very limited outlook. Students learn Chengyu in school as part of the Classical curriculum as well as the context. Most of the time there a story behind it for students to understand the moral. Classroom exercise: a group of four students will choose one from a list of Chinese Idioms, read it, understand what the moral is, and then they need to write a play and present it to the class. The rest of the class needs to write down the moral from the story."

- Josephine Cheng, Mann Middle School
 

→  On clips for younger audiences: "...our district has subscribed to a video viewing service via the internet called United Streaming. Perhaps one of the greatest features that it has is the ability to download a video on almost any category or subject in the social sciences and show it immediately... I showed a video on a master sword maker to my 7th graders last year and it was very well received. The video went into great detail about how a master swordsman would spend years perfecting a blade and that this lost art was almost impossible to duplicate by machine today. Even the scientific reasoning of how molecules were densely packed over and over to achieve maximum durability was really spectacular. So check it out... great resource..."

- David Jones, Foothills Middle School