MYP Individuals & Societies • Unit 5 • IDU
Expressions for Change
The arts are a means of personal expression and can be a powerful catalyst for creating political, social and environmental change.
Expression, communication and change.
Original AdornGeo sequence
Unit learning
Ideas on Issues
Be the Change
Inspiration: art as activism
That’s How a Superhero Learns to Fly
Current events and the Thai context
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Create an artistic piece that can help instigate change
Ideas on Issues
Start with an issue rather than an art form. Students use the AdornGeo current-events collection and the SDGs to identify a problem they care about, locate it, gather evidence, and define the audience whose thinking or behaviour they want to change.
Art as activism: connecting people and motivating action
Be the Change
Investigate how artists turn evidence and emotion into a public message. Compare purpose, symbolism, medium, scale, audience and context, then ask whether an artwork only raises awareness or creates a pathway to action.
Tania Bruguera: art plus activism equals artivism
Five things art taught me about activism
Inspiration: art as activism
Explore visual art, music, spoken word, film and performance as different languages for change. Students collect examples, identify the artistic choices that make each message memorable, and decide which medium best matches their own issue and audience.
What do art and activism have in common?
Art is a weapon for social change
The message behind Picasso’s Guernica
That’s How a Superhero Learns to Fly
Use The Script’s Superheroes as the original music case study. Analyse how lyrics, performance, editing and location turn hardship into a message about resilience and ordinary people. Storyboard how the same idea could be expressed through visual art or drama.
The Script: Superheroes (official video)
Superheroes: behind the scenes
Current events and the Thai context
Connect the project to a live issue. The 2025 censorship of an exhibition at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre offers a sharp local case study: can art challenge power when the exhibition itself becomes the subject of political pressure? Students should compare reporting, curatorial intent and the altered exhibition.
Rirkrit Tiravanija: art, participation and protest imagery
From issue to artistic intention
Choose one SDG and write an artistic intention: the issue, the evidence, the desired change, the audience, the emotion to evoke, and the action the audience should take. Develop several concepts before selecting a medium and creating a prototype.
Assessment: create an expression for change
Create an original piece in music, visual art or drama that aims to help achieve a Sustainable Development Goal. Present the work with an artist statement explaining the evidence, symbolism, creative decisions, intended audience and realistic pathway from expression to change. Finish by testing the work with an audience and reflecting on its impact.