PLACES & SPACES!
Using MATERIAL, SPACE, TIME, and HISTORY to make local-site-specific art.
Fridays 10am - 3pm | Ages 9 - 15 | April - June 2016
This ten-week class combined elements of local history, art history, and art-making: we investigated local places, learned about site-specific art throughout history and around the world, and made our own drawings, installations, movements and sculptures, inspired by the places we went.
We used histories and theories of art to experiment, practice, and play with making art in different places and spaces. We practiced place-based research and art-making at sites like an abandoned factory, a community garden, and a waterfront park as well as visited local installation sites, like Matt’s Bua’s “B-Home” in Catskill and Art Omi. At each site we examined the history, geography and context of the place, asking questions like: Why is this field here? Who built this building? How old it is? What happened here 50, 100, 200 years ago? How do I find out about this place’s history? And how will my research influence and inform my site-specific creation? We used books and the internet; visited the local history room at the Hudson Area library; and consulted old maps. Our research informed our site-specific creations, and the materials we chose to use. We worked with different materials at each site - with string, wool, wire, paper, and bodies. Each student chose a local site to study and create work reflective of their experience there: what emerged were plants growing in wedding dresses, a giant carrot, a stop motion film, order, chaos, and other site-specific creations!
A course with Lucy Segar and David Eustace.
