Damian Ortega is a sculptural, video, and performance artist born in 1967 and presently living in Mexico City.  Originating as a political cartoonist with no formal artistic training, Ortega’s work is created using found objects most often seeking to creatively un-assemble or mosaic-ly compose familiar objects into culturally historic windows.  Either way, whether disassembled or brought together, they are worked into a composition where our perspectives are altered to see an expansive universe composed of its many parts.  He invites us into the creation of the object or concept.  His sculptures are origin stories inviting the viewer to follow the trail of what political, social, and economic history and conditions into the creation of the everyday object. He uses his sculptures as a backtrack to invite viewers to consider the political, social, and economic weight behind the material.

Teacher Question #1:  How are the personal and political intertwined?
1. Student response:  Political views are based on personal experience.
2. Student response:  Politicians decisions effect our personal life.
3. Student response:  Politics dictate every aspect of our lives.

Teacher: Question #2:  How are art and culture intertwined?
1. Student response:  Culture is expressed through art.
2. Student response:  Each culture has its own unique art.
3. Student response:  Art reveals cultural history.

Teacher: Question #3:  Design a project that would transform how we see the world.
1. Student response:  Have everyone in the school throw their garbage from that day onto a giant sticky surface so everyone can see how much garbage we really produce in a day and promote cleaner practices.
2. Student response:  Create a COVID face mask that demonstrates how wearing the masks feels to us.  This would help everyone understand how others are feeling.
3. Student response:  To highlight inclusiveness, create a collective mosaic portrait of a famous person everyone likes that promotes inclusivity in their work.

Teacher: Question #4:  Design a project that expresses finding the universe in an everyday object.
1. Student response:  Arrange tools of some kind that would be used for a singular project, like everything needed for installing shower, and then use all those tools to create a sculpture.
2. Student response:  Take a part a camera and arrange it expanded.
3. Student response:  Create geodes inspired by Ortega.

Teacher: Question #5:  What limitations or advantages do tools give humans?
1. Student response:  We can only create as far as the tool will take us, as far as what it is designed to do.
2. Student response:  We can imagine past the present tool to the next version of it, create it, and use it to build something new.
3. Student response:  We can do far more with tools then we can without.