Lighting a Spark
Michael Wellen, TATE etc
June 2026
In the 1970s and 198os Ana Mendieta challenged traditional notions of sculpture, photography and film with her earth-body’ works, for which she created outlines of her body in the landscape using natural elements such as earth, fire and flowers. But the development of her experimental approach was inseparable from her experiences of art education and her lesser-known work as a school art teacher, where she was part of a generation of artists, educators and philosophers driven by a radical new principle: to ‘uneducate’ yourself.
Sometime around autumn 1973, during her first term as a full-time art teacher at Henry Sabin Elementary School in lowa City, Ana Mendieta gathered her class of children aged eight to ten, asked a question and recorded their string of answers on audio-cassette. ‘Um, I think it’s up in your brain,’ the first boy begins. ‘I think it’s sort of all over you,’ counters another. ‘I think the colour of it is pink,’ says a little girl, and later adds, ‘Correction: I think it’s pink with purple polka dots!’ making some classmates giggle. […]