week 2 questions:

What does “Land Back” mean to you?

Why is art important for change making?

Is art important in a time of crisis? And why/why not?

Do you like art where the message is directly articulated, or do you prefer a more interpretive message?

How do different ways of making art impact the message shared?

Think of a time you were othered, how did that feel? What was your response? Would you do it differently now? How do you feel about it now?

Think of a time when you have othered someone else? How did that make you feel? How do you feel about it now? What would you do differently?

Assignment #2: ‘The Role of The Trace’
Project introduced: Wednesday, May 14 (after class)
Check-in: Wednesday, May 21 (after class)

Relevant readings (for May 14th):
(1): “The trace”, from Tim Ingold’s Lines, 2007. (pdf)

(2): Prologue: Thoughts on a Frozen Pond & Trace. Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape – Lauret Savoy, 2015. (pdf)

Your task is to record (document, archive) our course overall while considering the ideas and conversations raised throughout it within broader concepts and the context of readings.

For this assignment: Consider the classes that have occurred thus far and anticipate those to come. How might you record or document the ideas, inspirations, knowledge shared, and encounters for classmates and future community members? Ask yourselves:

*How to trace what has been done thus far across the class?

*What is important to capture to be able to share?

*What should be held back from an external audience?

*What tools or materials provide the best method for recording?

Come up with a plan as to where to begin by Wednesday, May 21st - have some tests/experiments ready to share on this hotglue page (sharing your ideas with others is a great way to quickly discover what works and what doesn't). We will discuss on May 21 after class, reflect on one another's contributions and begin to develop a plan to continue recording the remainder of the class.

Assignment #1: 'What to listen for?'

Project Introduced: Thursday, May 8th
Project "performed" in class: Monday, May 12th
Check-in: Wednesday, May 21st

Materials needed: sound recording device (phone, tablet, voice recorder) - if you don't have easy access, I can help source something for you to use (let me know before the 12th)

In class on May 12th, we'll be thinking about visual culture, the power of collage, and the juxtaposition of image + text. We often rely on the visual as a strategy for recording and sharing information/knowledge but considering the other sensorial strategies can result in interesting artistic responses. Your task will be to record the collage-making portion of our class to familiarize yourself with documentation processes that centre sound.

You aren't required to edit your recording(s), but consider how editing might enhance your documentation. You are welcome to use/incorporate your recording(s) into assignment #2).

Consider these prompts as you experiment with capturing our collage day through sound:

*what sounds can best document the day?
*what additional context might be needed to help understand or place the recordings?
*consider the texture of sound (in terms of sound: layers; depth; loud versus the quiet; hard versus the soft; brash versus delicate...)
* consider sensitivities of recording others - what permissions might be needed? where does your comfort lie in recording others?
*consider clarity (what if any additional context might be needed?)
*once you have your recording(s) spend time reflecting on what other sensorial strategies might help to document our collective experience of the class (the smell, the feeling?...)

What If We Choose Welcome

Artist examples [Thinking about this from Tim Ingold's text]:

"Like threads, traces abound in the non-human world. The snail leaves an additive trace of slime, but animal tracks are usually reductive, caused by boring in wood or bark, imprinting in the soft surface of mud, sand or snow or, on harder ground, the wear and tear of many feet.

Some traces, however, entail neither the addition nor the subtraction of material.

It is revealing that we use the same verb, to draw, to refer to the activity of the hand both in the manipulation of threads and in the inscription of traces.

week 3 questions:
What does purity culture look like in your lived experience with social justice?

Have you worked in groups that are organized around social justice work? What were some of the challenges of that work? What did you learn from these challenges?

Have you had places where you feel like you can show up as your whole self? What did that feel like?

What is one tool or skill you have learned from the readings week and will take with you moving forward?

week 4 question:

What is a neighbourhood?
How does visiting create place?
How does the history of a place shape its present? Who’s history maters?
What role does imagination play in knowledge making?
Why is it important to centre Indigenous knowledges of place?

Intro: You'll be considering strategies for recording (documenting, archiving) knowledge shared and learned across our course. Using our weekly questions and readings as a guide, your task is to consider how best to capture and represent ideas and conversations engaged throughout the course within broader concepts and context. Each week, you will use this space to brainstorm around weekly questions to spark conceptual and material ideas for generating this record.

Examples of artists working with field recordings:

days to meet after/during class: 
May 14
May 21
June 2
June 4
June 9th - share with rest of class?

week 1 questions:

From TJ Demos text:
Suvendrini Perera defines “survival media” as acts of “improvised transmutations and forced improvisations” in zones of conflict. These include “forms of cultural politics, corporeal poetics and their material effects” that
express a refusal of victimhood and a defiant performance of resistance, by any media necessary.45

'A line made by walking' (1967), Richard Long

Kris Harzinski, Last Night Out, 2020 [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]
from the Hand Drawn Map Association

Ana MendietaFlower Person, Flower Body, 
1975 / 2020
Color photograph16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

Ana MendietaUntitled: Silueta Series, 1978Super-8mm film, color, silentRunning time: 3:14 minutes

In her “Silueta” series (1973–80) of “earth-body” performances, for example, she lay directly on the earth and made silhouettes. Medieta then documented her imprint with paint, blood, or found materials such as twigs or flowers and photographed the results. 

Gwenyth Chao
Plasticity, 2019-2021

Biodegradable plastic made from tapioca starch, water, glycerin and vinegar, Dimensions variable with 5,6,7 sculptures

Assignment #3: ‘the air we breathe’ (practice describing smells and tastes)
Project introduced: Wednesday, May 21 (after class)
Check-in: Wednesday, May 28 (after class)

Visit the link in the image below, read, follow through to the survey and complete it.

This is an adapted version of 'the air we breathe,' an exhibition and participatory project from 2023 that thinks through the complexities of air pollution by weaving together themes of environmental catastrophe, environmental racism, cultural and political shifts, and conspiracy. The participatory element offers an opportunity to spend time thinking about the ways that smell and memory intertwine across issues of air pollution and social/cultural shifts.

[note: for the prompt re: the odour effects diagram - use the blank watercolour postcard provided]

Click the image/link below to enter (password = air)