In 2024-2025, 7th and 8th graders at PS184 Shuang Wen collaborated with artist Mimi Biyao Bai on a series of classroom-based workshops exploring concepts of safety and belonging through drawing and screen printing.
The project, Collective Camouflage, draws inspiration from the camouflage strategies used by plants and animals, as well as the state of blending in and standing out simultaneously. Through these workshops, students created symbols of safety in the form of drawings that represent people, objects, or places significant to them. These drawings were combined into a collaborative class pattern, which students silkscreened onto fabric squares. The project culminated with the individual squares being sewn together into a large fabric backdrop, representing the collective safety and comfort created within the classroom community. Additionally, students silkscreened the class pattern onto their own t-shirts, reinforcing the idea of blending in while standing out.
As part of the workshop activities, the group traveled to Midtown to visit the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (EFA RBPMW), where they learned about the screen printing techniques that they will apply in the classroom. Through interactive presentations and experimental art-making, each student integrated their own unique imagery into a collaborative, collective vision of safety and belonging in the classroom.
拜碧瑶（咪咪) x PS184m 雙文學校
2024 / 2025 集體隱藏(Collective Camouflage)聯合工作坊
PS184雙文學校的七年級和八年級學生將與藝術家拜碧瑶（咪咪) (Mimi Biyao Bai)合作舉辦一系列工作坊和研討會，透過繪畫和絲網印刷,我們探索安全和歸屬感的概念。
這堂課[項目名稱]的靈感,來自植物和動物可以使自己的皮膚或顏色變成環境的一部分, 但也可以在安全的情況下變回原形的偽裝策略 (camouflage strategies)。透過工作坊和研討會，學生將以繪畫的形式創建安全符號，代表對他們來說重要的人、物體或地點。這些圖畫將被組合成一個拼圖，學生利用網版印刷技術,將設計轉移到方形布料上。
該項目最終將把各個方塊縫在一起形成一個大的織物背景，代表教室社區內創造的集體安全和舒適。這個過程最終形成一塊代表教室/社區中的集體安全感覺和溫暖舒適的大拼圖。另外，學生也將利用網版印刷技術,將設計轉移到T卹上面，以傳達”融入人群、同時脫穎而出”的理念。
作為研討會活動的一部分，該小組將前往市中心參觀 Robert Blackburn 版畫工作室 (Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop)，在那裡他們將了解將在課堂上應用的網版印刷技術。透過互動演示和實驗藝術創作，每個人不僅可以創作個人作品，還可以創造一個共享的、共同製作的環境，豐富他們作為課堂社區的集體認同。
藝術家聲明
我的作品利用偽裝來探索我們所繼承的關於同化、勞動和生存的文化幻想如何既證實又反對我們的現實生活。偽裝可以使自己隱形或高度可見，有時同時進行。就像同化一樣，偽裝自己的做法取決於某人被看到的環境; 以及誰正在觀看誰,監視誰。
我對偽裝與同化之間聯繫的探索始於我移民美國的個人經歷，當我考慮我個人的故事如何置於帝國、殖民主義和榨取的歷史以及適應的歷史時，我的想法不斷演變、有時抗拒、有時我會學習共存和相互依賴。 我對 1900 年代初期迷彩軍事應用的研究表明，一張網經常被用作一種適應性強的多功能技術。 它們可以偽裝坦克、人員和各種景觀中的位置，同時也提供陰影或掩護。 在我的作品中，一張網作為可以容納、連結、隱藏和糾纏的物體，扮演著詩意和實用的角色。
我透過製作包括黏土、墨水和線在內的藝術品，以及相機捕捉到的我身體的受限運動，來標記融入環境所需的無形和非物質的工作和努力。勞動將這些概念和材料編織在一起，意義透過重複和迭代積累，想法透過我身體的持續勞力來處理。我還致力於將藝術家理解為一名工人，認識到藝術勞動採取的不同形式，並將這種勞動與其他工人的勞動聯繫起來，使個人「藝術家天才 artist-genius」的幻想複雜化。
About the Collaborators
Mimi Biyao Bai was born in Xi’an, China, and is based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice encompasses sculpture, drawing, and film and her work uses camouflage to explore how the cultural fantasies we have inherited about assimilation, labor, and survival both confirm and contradict our lived realities.
Bai has presented work at Artists Space, the Boston Center for the Arts, BRIC, Cuchifritos Gallery, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her films have screened at Rooftop Films, the Center for Art, Research, and Alliances (CARA), the Rockaway Film Festival and the Maryland Film Festival. Bai was a 2023/24 A.I.R. Gallery Fellow, a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Interdisciplinary Work, and a recipient of two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at organizations including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Pioneer Works, Triangle, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. Bai attended the Whitney Independent Study Program and is a graduate of Alfred University (MFA Sculpture) and Wesleyan University (BA Sociology).
“My work uses camouflage to explore how the cultural fantasies we have inherited about assimilation, labor, and survival both confirm and contradict our lived realities. Camouflage can involve making oneself invisible or hyper-visible, sometimes at the same time. Like assimilation, the practice of camouflaging oneself is dependent on the context in which someone is being seen as well as who is doing the seeing. My exploration of this connection between camouflage and assimilation began with my personal experience of immigrating to the U.S., and my ideas evolved as I consider how my individual story is situated within a history of empire, colonialism, and extraction, but also a history of adaptation, resilience, and interdependence. My research into the military applications of camouflage in the early 1900s revealed that nets have often been used as an adaptable and multi-functional technology. They can disguise tanks, people, and positions in a variety of landscapes, while also providing shade or cover. In my work, nets play both a poetic and utilitarian role as objects that can hold, connect, conceal, and entangle. I mark the invisible and immaterial work and effort required to blend into one’s environment by making artwork that includes clay, ink, and thread, as well as the restricted movements of my body captured by the camera. Labor weaves these concepts and materials together, meaning accumulates through repetition and iteration, and ideas are processed through the ongoing physical engagement of my body. I’m also invested in understanding the artist as a worker, recognizing the different forms that artistic labor takes, and also connecting this labor to that of other workers, complicating the fantasy of the individual “artist-genius.” (Mimi Biyao Bai)
Jas Pinturas is a visual artist, educator, and Indigenous dancer from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Her work focuses on cultural identity and politics, addressing the social issues affecting the working sectors of New York City. Jas earned her BFA in Fine Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2018. In 2021, she was awarded the City Artist Corps Grant. With this grant, she curated “Behind Closed Doors,” an exhibition addressing the emotional impact of COVID-19 on communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic due to systemic health and social inequities. Recently, the Brooklyn Arts Council awarded her the Creative Equations Fund: Justice, Equity, Sustainability + Performing Arts. Jas has exhibited her work in various spaces, such as the Museum at FIT, the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, and Gowanus Open Studios. During her leisure time, she advocates for culture and is a member of the Mixtec Indigenous dance troupe Tecuanes Quetzalcoatl. Currently, she works as a Teaching Artist, providing free workshops with community organizations such as Ayotl Artes, Artists Alliance Inc., and the NARS Foundation.
PS 184 Shuang Wen is known for its bilingual program, with in-class instruction conducted in both Mandarin and English starting from Pre-K. While the school has a student body composed of 69-70% Asian students, the bilingual instruction is extended to those from non-Mandarin-speaking households as well. The school is committed to inclusivity, particularly focusing on historically underserved groups such as low-income families and students with disabilities. Low-income students make up 68% of the student body and perform 41.5% better on state tests compared to low-income students statewide. PS 184’s accommodations for students with disabilities have also proven effective, with students with disabilities performing 27% better on state tests than their peers statewide. Additionally, they are 14.5 times less likely to become chronically absent when compared to the state average for disabled students. PS 184 has fostered a strong community, as reflected in surveys filled out by students, teachers, and administrators. The NYC Department of Education awarded the school a perfect score for safety and inclusivity. Moreover, 95% of families agree that the staff works hard to build trusting relationships.
EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (EFA RBPMW) is the oldest and longest-running community print shop in the United States. Not only a co-operative printmaking workspace that provides professional-quality printmaking facilities to artists and printmakers of every skill level, EFA RBPMW is committed to inspiring and fostering its diverse artistic community. Dedicated to the making of fine art prints in an environment that embraces technical and aesthetic exploration, innovation, and collaboration, EFA RBPMW seeks to improve the overall quality of fine art printmaking by providing low cost, unfettered access to printers, equipment, and education. It is with this spirit of openness and inclusion that Robert Blackburn’s vision of sustaining this welcoming, creative environment continues to serve as the backbone of the workshop today.
Artists Alliance Inc.’s In-School Residency Program, now in its second year, supports the presence of professional contemporary artists in the classroom, encouraging students to explore ideas related to personal identity, family, neighborhood, spaces of personal and shared resonance, memory, and archive, while reflecting on notions of togetherness, collaboration, and mutual exchange. AAI prioritizes the commission of artists whose personal, familial, and cultural backgrounds reflect that of collaborating students. As the in-school artist-in-residence program is dedicated to the notion that people and institutions are stronger when working together, projects encourage students to develop their work in conversation with parents, guardians, neighbors, family members, and caregivers.
Commissioned by Artists Alliance Inc. Presented in partnership with the PS184m Shaung Wen School. Project support provided by EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (EFA RBPMW) and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.