to begin

Ask your students to spend 1-2 minutes quietly examining the images and videos above. When they have had enough time to digest the artwork, it’s time to explore further through quality questions.

As you lead this discussion, accept any response! Praise your students for sharing their thoughts. Paraphrase your pupil’s answer using your own words to make sure you’re both on the same page. When you’ve come to the end of their lines of thought, ask another question!

This exercise is meant to serve as a casual discussion. Feel free to add or omit questions so that the conversation can proceed organically. Remember to use inquiry based language when forming questions ( i.e. “What could be happening?” rather than “What is happening?)

Make sure that your students have pencils and paper while they explore this artwork, so they can work out their thoughts through words, lists, and drawings!

quality questions

1. Watch the video closely, noticing everything you can. Pay attention to the object’s materials, and size.

   1. What did you notice?

   2. Let’s take a moment to itemize all of the things we see. What materials and objects are used to make up this artwork?

   3. During the video, did you notice a location where the two rocks “become one” in your visual plane?

   4. Let’s take one more trip around the object by watching the video again.

2. Kwade’s ‘paravents’ are designed to sow confusion by creating effects that highlight the doubt and create mirrored illusions. Our bodily identities become a part of the object; our reflections are manifested within the artwork. 

   1. When you stand in front of a mirrored panel, are you looking at your physical self or a reflection of it? 

   2. Is that the same? How or how not?

3. Kwade often finds objects (called ‘found objects’) and incorporates them into her work by making copies of them. 

   1. Which rock do you think might be the original and which is the copy? 

   2. What makes you say that?

4. Consider the mirrors not as reflections, but as alternate realities. How might the world be different in the reality we’re peering into?

   1. When we walk around the artwork, WE actually become a part of it. Our physical manifestations are reflected in the mirrors. Do you think the artwork is complete without someone being reflected in it? Why or why not?

   2. What’s it like to be reflected in the artwork? 

   3. Do you think it seems different than an ordinary mirror? In what ways?

5. Is there such a thing as the truth? Why or why not? 

   1. What is your definition of the truth?

6. Alicja Kwade said this: “Art is a question and an attempt to answer it. Art is not always understandable and does not always succeed in giving answers or even suggesting them.”

   1. How do you feel about that? Do you agree or disagree? 

   2. How does what she said relate to this object?

7. The title of this artwork is Changed. Why do you think the artist might have chosen to title it Changed?

the big idea

How does this object relate to the big idea?

With this artwork, specifically, Kwade presents us with the ability to question our reality/our world/and even the dimension we exist within.

Key Information:

1. Kwade is exploring questions such as ‘What is real? And, what is not?’ 

2. The rock facsimile is made from aluminum and is cast from the original found stone. 

3. The work may be exploring what psychologists call “mirror stage” (when babies learn that they exist independently, separate from the world around them and the other people in their lives). “The panels become sites of transference, physical markers of the points at which objects begin to inhabit their objecthood.” 

4. The title of the work, Changed, could refer to a number of different things:

   1. How sand changes from dust to glass. 

   2. How the rock is given a clone. 

   3. How our bodies are reflected (doubled) in the mirror. 

Key Words:

1. Dimension - parallel universes/alternate realities that exist parallel to our own, but where things work or happened differently

2. Multiverse - hypothetical group of multiple universes; an infinite realm of being or potential being of which the universe is regarded as a part or instance

3. Mirror Stage - based on the belief that infants recognize themselves in a mirror or other symbolic contraption which induces apperception from the age of about six months

4. Reflection - an image seen in a mirror or shiny surface; a thing that is a consequence of or arises from something else

Quotes:

1. “I’m trying to see what could be the structure of reality.” - Alicja Kwade

2. “My work starts where I stop understanding it.” - Alicja Kwade

3. “I also try to analyse more minor aspects, such as why this reality is as it is, and why something costs as much as it does and not more, or less. Who is creating the reality and how do we contribute to this process, namely how do we change the reality ourselves by means of our everyday activities and decisions? I think about these things all the time. Who is the “me”? Am “I” the same person today as “I” was ten days ago?” - Alicja Kwade

Remember to allow your students to derive their own narratives from this artwork before revealing any information about the artist!

equal voicing opportunity

Introduce the following prompt to your students: 

“You wake up one morning and you sense that something in your world has changed. Your bed sheets are made of chainmail! Your mattress is made of cotton candy! In your new world, objects are made of new and unexpected materials.

Have your pupils connect the objects in their world with their new materials. Then, encourage your students to share the make-up of their new worlds. While sharing, ponder the following questions:

1. Why did you make the decisions you did?

2. Did any other students make any of the same decisions? Why or why not?