International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Amidei, A. R. (2024). Researching justice in the Darkroom Project. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25(si2.9). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea25si2.9

The Darkroom Project is a collaborative research assignment for college level theatre classes in performance design and visual period styles that facilitates active learning and lays the groundwork for developing a culturally competent design practice enabling designers to effectively collaborate in intercultural settings. In this project, students complete in-depth research using a variety of primary resources and synthesize it for application in a hypothetical stage adaptation of Lila Quintero Weaver’s autobiographical graphic novel about social justice and the civil rights movement, Darkroom (2012). This project highlights student strengths as both researchers and creative designers to build an onstage visual world filled with meaningful content and aesthetically sophisticated choices in support of a story. By engaging in this project, students will gain a better understanding of the socio-political context of clothing, art, and architecture and how it relates to a student’s specific discipline as a theatre artist.