Expressions of Identity: Engaging Theory and Public Advocacy through Media Installation and Performance

Media installations and performance are potent ways to creatively grapple with critical theories about cultural identity. This case study explores students’ use of these arts methods to engage mass/lay audiences about the intersections between theory and their lived experiences of cultural identity. Sixteen students enrolled in an upper-division communication studies course worked with discipline-based theories related to their socio-cultural/intersectional identities. Their projects were featured in an end-of-semester exhibition called “Expressions of Identity.” Using Dewhurst’s criteria for justice-based pedagogy, this article explores how media-arts projects 1) engage lived experiences, 2) work with complex theories of identity, and 3) use mediated communication and related strategies to involve lay audiences in the service of public advocacy and justice-based pedagogies.