Architecture | Design | Humanities & Sciences | Interdisciplinary Studios

FINE ARTS

CERAM370 Workshop: FOR-SITE (Undergraduate)
Instructor: Nathan Lynch
This interdisciplinary, field-based course focuses on earthworks, land use, and ecological interventions. Working closely with the FOR-SITE Foundation, students take several trips to their site in Nevada City to camp, study, experiment, and explore the site. In addition to studying major earthworks from across the globe we visit local artisans, ecologists, and historians to learn from the specific history of the Nevada City landscape. The primary elements of ceramic processes, (clay, water, fire) are the focus of our material investigations in this class. Work that is impermanent, sustainable, and experiential is encouraged. Two weekend visits to FOR-SITE are planned: February 22–24 and Spring Break—March 17–21.

METAL350 CM: Lost and Found (Undergraduate)
Instructor: Curtis Arima
This combined media course explores the possibilities of taking ready-made, found and/or recycled materials and making them into sculptural, functional, or wearable objects. The possibilities are endless for interpretation on all scales. Environmental concerns can be addressed by the utilization of recycled goods. Experimentation with such materials as paper, rubber, glass, and wood, in combination with metal, is encouraged. Assigned projects, critiques, and field trips are included in the syllabus.

TEXTL208 Workshop: Soil to Studio (Undergraduate)
Instructor: Sasha Duerr
This course presents alternative practices in the design and production of textiles and clothing through an in-depth study of regenerative design, investigative fieldwork, and studio practice. The curriculum examines living examples of sustainable textile innovation from around the world, building a sense of empowerment. Students learn about direct sources of organic fibers and dyes, cross-pollinate with the local and global sustainability movement, and look closely at the important role of textiles in the future of green design.

In this class, students follow a trajectory from "soil to studio." By visiting urban gardens and meeting with local pioneers in regenerative design, students gather valuable resources to draw upon, both individually and collectively, in their creative practices. By identifying and gathering nontoxic plants in the urban landscape, students experiment with locally grown materials, learn hands-on dyeing techniques, and gain valuable insight into the politics, aesthetics, and practice of natural dyeing.

FINAR604 GE: Topophilia (Graduate)
Instructor: Lynn Kirby
The term topophilia couples sentiment with place. What are our views on our physical environment, man-made and natural? How do we as artists link our concepts toward our environment and worldviews? How do we work with such concepts as place and nonplace, site specificity, and landscape in our practice? Which of these terms are internal moveable concepts and which might be external or shifting definitions that evolve over time. How do we define place in a culturally complex, decentered, and global world? What is local and vernacular; what is a dreamed ideal space? A public place? How do we move through a space? Represent a place?

We examine our perceptions, attitudes, and values through the work of artists working with questions of place—from film and video works—to diverse contemporary practices, including architects and such eco-artists as Amber Hasselbring of the Mission Greenbelt project. We also examine the public space and nature work of Tim Collins and Reiko Goto, Edi Rama's transformation of the Albanian capital as artist mayor, James Benning's recently completed 20-year film archive of the Spiral Jetty and Jeremy Deller's, the Battle of Orgreave, etc.

We read such relevant writers as Yi-Fu Tuan, Edward Casey, Rebecca Solnit, J. B. Jackson, Miwon Kwon, Marc Auge, Minouri Sato, Tim Cresswell, Simon Schama, and Tacita Dean, among others. In addition to viewing work and discussing this topic, we get to know one another's work through studio visits. After more informal conversations, students give a presentation of their work in relation to these themes.