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Public Engagement Courses
Spring 2009
FROM STUDIO TO SITUATION
Section Number: GRAD-102G-01 Instructor: Peter Hocking
Description:
Discursive, relational and community-based art practices invite a dialogue between those making meaning and their context.
They require an investigation into the nature of place and question traditional notions of audience - pushing the boundaries
of what art might be in the public sphere and establishing a new relationship between the makers and consumers of meaning.
Using downtown Providence as a site for investigation and collaboration, this course will provide insight into the research
methods, collaborative processes, modes of documentation, ethics and implementation of such work. In addition to looking at
the work of established artists, such as Allan Kaprow, Guy Debord, Suzanne Lacy, Nayland Blake, and Pam Hall, we will also
review the work of arts collectives, and community collaborations, both locally and internationally. Over the course of the
semester, each student (either individually or as part of a team) will develop one site-specific project or body of work.
Credits:
3.00
Academic Level: GR - Graduate
Seminar Tuesday 01:10PM - 04:10PM, CIT/Mason Building, Room 201
CLAY IN CONTEXT
Section Number: CER-4106-01
Description: In this class you will find a site, a venue,
a place from which your investigations will spring. Working from the tradition and need of tableware; or architectural ornamentation;
or public art, you will attach your personal expressive needs and vision to uses outside of the studio. Creative and inventive
individual solutions are stressed. All ceramic techniques and processes appropriate may be used. Collaboration is encouraged.
This is for advanced students. Requirement for Junior Ceramic majors for 6 credits. Available to nonmajors as elective for
3 credits Department permission required
Credits: 3.00
Academic Level: UG - Undergraduate
Studio Friday 01:10PM - 06:10PM, Metcalf Building, Room 314
SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES
Section Number: GRAD-109G-01 Instructor: Marie Cieri
Social geography is the study of social relations within specific spaces and places. This course will introduce
students to basic concepts of social geography and will survey the complex ways that elements of human diversity such as race,
class, gender, sexuality, age, education, and culture of origin interact with and within built and natural environments. Through
a number of case studies set in various locations, we will explore not only how human difference is expressed in space but
also how it is affirmed and reinforced by spatial structuring. Particular emphasis will be given to various methods of geographic
representation and how they are used by governments, planners, the media, law enforcement, marketers, tourism promoters, community
activists, academics, and artists to produce competing visions of how to think about and act upon space and place. Students
will study and critique theemploy some of them in producing their own representations of social geographies in the Providence
area. Basic concepts of social geography will be drawn from the text Social Geographies: Space and Society by Gill Valentine.
Additional course readings will address how issues in social geography play out in specific spatial contexts. Ideas about
representations of social geographies will be introduced and elaborated in a number of readings as well as through examination
of alternative mapping projects, public art works, and articles from the popular press. Students will be expected to discuss
readings in class and make short oral and written reports. Assignments will include observing and reporting on social interactions
in a specific area or site within greater Providence, mapping students own social geographies, writing about filmed and other
mass media representations of social geographies, and a final project where students will produce informed and substantive
representations of particular social geographies within the local area. Credits: 3.00
Academic Level: GR - Graduate
Tuesday 01:10PM - 04:10PM, CIT/Mason Building, Room 105
USE OF SPACE:PLACE OF CAMPUS
Many contemporary art and design practices explore the
creation of community through various kinds of participatory performance. These practices, organized under rubrics of tactical
appropriation, relational aesthetics, and community organizing, aspire to create community in environments that are not always
hospitable. This research seminar will explore these practices and their theoretical underpinnings by looking closely at the
RISD campus. RISD's development history has lead to a vastly diverse set of buildings and spaces that wend their way through
Providence. However, for many students there is a palpable sense that something is missing. The seminar asks the question,
"Can a sense of community be created through the re-occupation of existing spaces and programs?" To examine this question
students will: 1.) map the ad-hoc and institutional use(s) of RISD's current facilities, and, 2.) introduce themselves to
diverse conceptual frameworks. This theoretical and practical catalogue will be tested through small happenings, designed
by students, to activate various spaces on campus. The semester will culminate in a series of propositions about spaces for
community at RISD. The seminar is co-taught by Peter Hocking, Director of the Office of Public Engagement, and architect and
designer Charlie Cannon, and is open to all graduate students from all departments.
RESEARCH PROJECT:PERFORMANCE
Section Number: DM-7152
Instructor: Catherine D'Ignazio
This course is a production seminar for students on whose work incorporates performance or performative
elements, including theatrical spaces & objects, interaction design and networked performance. It will be structured
as a series of short lectures, in-class collaborative projects and workshops that cover contemporary practices in performance,
with a focus on projects informed by digital media, participatory aesthetics and networked performance. The main production
emphasis of hte course will be the realization of a performance research project completed independently or in collaboration
with other students. Discussions will focus on the role of spectacle, participation & interactivity in media projects
with special consideration given to the roe of the body and the site of the work. This course is useful both for tudents
who consider themselves "performers" and also for those who are creativing interactive objects, environments or systems and
who need to think about movement, gesture, and the subtleties of timing, body, and interaction.
Credits 3.00
Academic
Level: Graduate or Advanced Undergraduate
COMPETITION, COLLABORATION, AND COLLECTIVE
Section Number: GRAD-106G-01
Instructor: Christopher Ho
The course is divided into roughly two parts. The first traces the passage from modernism long anchored
by the supposed ontology of the medium, the continuity of history, the centeredness of the subject to the unfixed and fluid
territory of various postmodernisms. It focuses on developing a complex picture of collaboration; here, collaboration is not
a procedural trend but a structural principle. How can the dynamic between two artists, one who borrows from or works with
another, be abstracted and articulated? What are some dominant types of collaboration (competition, identification, mimesis,
sympathy) and how do they differ? Part II explores the proliferation of artist collectives in contemporary production, especially
in relation to community-based, new genre, and installation art.
Credits: 3.00
Academic Level: GR - Graduate
Seminar Wednesday 01:10PM - 04:10PM, CIT/Mason Building, Room 105
ART AND HEALING
FA-5536-01 Instructor: Melinda Bridgeman
This course will examine the connection between arts and healing
from ancient times to the present and explore the contemporary movement of the arts in healthcare. Students will do a collaborative
practicum with patients and work closely with the staff - either on-site at Bradley Hospital, a children's psychiatric hospital,
in East Providence, R.I., or at one of its residential treatment facilities. There will be a personal studio project; a practicum
project; experiential workshops; visits by contemporary artist/healers; discussions with professionals about child mental
health; assigned readings and writings; slide lectures; and journal-keeping. Course Level: Sophomore and above Permission
of instructor required.
Studio Tuesday 01:10PM - 02:30PM, Refectory, Room B
Studio Tuesday 02:30PM - 06:10PM, Off Campus, Room TBA
INSIDE OUT STUDIO
Section: GRAD-2210-01 Instructor: Nadine Gerdts
Working as a team of collaborators, mentors, and visiting artists/designers
while experimenting with sustainable, low cost design materials, the InsideOut Studio works with urban public schools to introduce
innovative design to schools and their immediate community. The studio is designed to open up a critical dialog directly with
city school students, teachers, and administrators while working on a project that engages school students as partners and
introduces the value of innovative design through hands-on participation in the design process and project construction. Work
from the InsideOut Studio over the past four years has received national and local awards for collaborative design innovation.
In addition, RISD has published two books cataloging the studio experiences working with the bilingual Rafael Hernandez School,
a Boston Public School in Roxbury and Hope Arts/Hope High School in Providence. New publications and further recognition of
the studio s model for collaborative design partnerships are expected. The InsideOut Studio draws from the multiple disciplines
at RISD, working to stretch and make flexible the interdisciplinary opportunities for architectural design and construction
in the urban landscape. Each project undertaken by the InsideOut Studio aims to build a sense of stewardship for the immediate
and greater environment of the school while cultivating an understanding of the vital social and cultural dynamics of city
school communities. The role of the designer in seeing these needs evolve into realized design projects through community
action.
Credits: 3.0
Studio Tuesday, Thursday 01:10PM - 05:40PM, Bayard Ewing Building,
Room 2FL
PLANNING AND CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY SEMINAR
Section Number: LDAR-223G-01 Instructor: Nadine Gerdts
Through spatial and cultural analysis this course explores the history
and meaning of various geographical realities in the Western and non-Western world. A critical examination of urban, suburban
and rural land-use patterns; utopian and applied planning practices; models of urban and suburban change; the role of conservation
and preservation advocacy and their interface with development, settlement and ecology, allows for an evaluation of new ideas
and recent experiments seen against a historical and cultural background. Requirement for MLA programs; Open to nonmajors
Brown University students are encouraged to participate.
AQUA INCOGNITA
Section Number: PHOTO-5726-01 Instructor: Anna Strickland
Water is one of the most pressing global issues today, as the whole
world faces the prospect of global warming with serious ramifications on weather patterns, population growth, and other environmental
problems affecting water quality. At the same time, water in its various forms has been providing rich inspirations for artists,
writers, and thinkers throughout ages. In this course we will explore the various dimensions and values of water in our lives,
both as citizens of the world, including the natural world, and as artists and designers. We will address readings that range
from poetic and artistic to scientific and philosophical, examples of visual art highlighting aspects of water from past and
present, rituals regarding water from different cultural traditions, and case studies involving built environment utilizing
water. The class will be run as a seminar, with every student expected to contribute to the discussion by sharing ideas and
studio works. Because of the collaborative nature of this course, each student is expected to produce both studio work and
written work, as well as participating in a collaborative project. Class work will be supplemented by field trips to an area
sewage treatment facility, a tour of Narragansett Bay through Save the Bay, and area artists studio. Students will have the
choice of receiving 3 HPSS credits or 3 major or non-major studio elective credits. Both studio and written work requirements
apply to either choice, although with different weights. Restricted to Sophomore and Above Also offered as HPSS S726. Register
for the course in which credit is desired.
Seminar Friday 01:10PM - 06:10PM, Design Center, Room 308
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