Advanced Studio Printmaking

This course is an introduction to three dimensional design and sculpture. Through a variety of projects students will analyze and apply the classic organizing principles of three dimensional design work. Elements of form, space, line, texture, light, color, scale and time (including sound, sensory perceptions, movement and natural processes) will be explored -- with attention paid to how a work functions, involves a viewer, activates a space, or impacts an environment, physically, psychically or socially. Projects in the class will progress from the creation of objects, to investigations of the sensory and objective aspects of space. Students will experiment with subtractive and constructive processes using traditional as well as contemporary materials such as found, recycled and natural objects. A diverse range of materials and techniques will be introduced and demonstrated. Discussion of historic and contemporary artists' work will augment the course. Students will be evaluated based on completion of projects, participation in class discussions and individual/group critiques.

This course is designed to provide students opportunities to build on their technical and conceptual skills of photography created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer. There will be a focus on photographic image-making within a fine art context in conjunction with development of heightened awareness and concepts in relation to personal perspective. Each class will include discussion of reading assignments, in-class shooting assignments, looking at contemporary artists and their photographic practices. Art concepts, ideas, and critiques of ongoing student work will occur weekly. In addition, there will be an individual meeting with the instructor at midterm aimed to solidify each student’s work. Students will be evaluated based on the completion of a series of assignments, the development of a self-chosen body of work, participation in class discussions/critiques and class attendance.

This course explores animation as a form of creative expression, experimentation and personal vision. Various techniques, such as drawing, cut-out, painting on film, and under-the-camera collage, will be introduced. Students will create flip-books, video pencil tests and animated films. Students will be given exercises and assignments that guide them through processes for making art. Various artists' animated films will be screened and discussed. History and concepts related to animation and film will be introduced through screenings, readings and discussions.

This beginning course in ceramics will explore the making of objects with clay by using the potter's wheel, slab roller, coils and press molds. We will explore surface design using slips, under glazes and glazes and patterns. Through these methods we will incorporate wax resist, tape resist, plastic resist, sgraffito, slip and glaze trailing. Six hand-built and twenty wheel-thrown works are required, with reviews taking place during week five and week ten.

The student will be introduced to a contemporary stream of visual culture that places nature, ethos, competing ideologies, and our relationship to these within the context of emergent forms of art activism. In response to environmental and social crisis, theory and praxis figure significantly in the work of artists and artist collectives from around the globe whose practice manifests as socially engaged art (SEA) defined by Pablo Helguera; data/information reimagined as by Mona Hatoum and Trevor Paglen; or examinations of reconciliation and mass trauma in the work of Doris Salcedo and Kara Walker. In some cases, artworks engage with nature/culture by their placement in site-specific locations, through new modes of picturing, and/or through the appropriation of hypothetical scientific musings or emerging technologies (e.g., Ed Atkins, fictionalized genetic hybridization and subversion of surveillance tools). Many of the artists we examine make use of new tools designed for industrial purpose, medical, agricultural, or scientific research. Others further participatory dialogues within anti-racist, de-colonizing, and queer-centred discursive practices. This work is inherently transdisciplinary and human ecological in disposition and character. Many of these producer-artists appropriate the role of “researcher” in order to bring attention to ecologies that human beings have disrupted or will disrupt. Doris Salcedo, Tacita Dean, Kara Walker, Mark Dion, Shirin Neshat, Ai Weiwei, Andra Ursuta, Karim Ben Khelifa, Raven Chacon, Frances Alys, Natalie Jeremijenko, Guillermo Galindo, among others, will be considered. Evaluation is based on class participation, evidence of completion of weekly readings, a final paper, and a class presentation.

Across a range of epochs, cultures, and territories, human beings have proffered myths, stories, and scientific theories in order to explain catastrophic natural events. From kata=down, strephein=turn, the Greek katastrephein meant "under-turning" in the ancient world. This course explores postulations regarding large- and small-scale calamitous events that seem to originate from below the surface of Earth. Our enquiry engages with legendary tales, historical records, material culture and scientific discourses that document attempts to explain the meaning and/or mechanism of such memorable episodes. What causes a mountain to eject ash and toxic gases? What infernal force creates lava flow? Why does the earth shake? Why do some natural waters cause harm? How do we understand that which we cannot see? Through case-studies informed by the literature of science, the arts and humanities, we will plumb the depths and limits of the human imagination. This class uses both a lecture-based and seminar-style discussion approach as well as time spent visiting local lab and field sites. Students will be evaluated based on their weekly activities and writing assignments, and a final project with both oral and written presentation components.