Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0258 - Movement and Forms: Experimental Sculpture

This course integrates performance, sculpture, and histories of queer and feminist art. In this course, students will work in multimodal form to create sculptural objects, or props crafted out of wood, metal, found objects, molds, fabric and incorporate them into self-choreographed movement(s), performances, happenings or political actions throughout the semester. As a method of presentation, students may integrate components of video, sound, site-specific work and installation. We will examine how contemporary artists and activists use their bodies/objects and performances as a tool of subversion, activism, and storytelling. We will look at the important work ranging from ADAPT and the "Capitol Crawl, NYC Ballroom Culture, Marisela Escobedo, ACT UP, Bread and Puppet Theater, artists such as Lorraine O'Grady to trans performance artist Keijaun Thomas. As Diana Taylor coined the term "Acts of Transfer," we can examine the ways in which these artists, groups and students can utilize their bodies to perform an action or series of actions in order to create urgency and attention while transmitting social knowledge, memory, and identity. Keywords:Sculpture, performance, queer, found object The content of this course deals with issues of race and power.

In/Justice Lab/Materials fee:$150 Students should expect to spend 8 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time