Aram Han Sifuentes

This 3-week summer intensive course explores the intersection of performance and social justice, emphasizing the body as a site of resistance and defiance. Through lectures, discussions, performance exercises, and exhibition, students will investigate individual and collective strategies of defiance¿including breath, bodies taking up space, joy, rest, protest, and movement in solidarity. These acts, whether subtle or overt, these acts confront systems of power and affirm our existence.

Students will create two performance-based works¿including an installation and live performance¿culminating in a presentation at the SAIC galleries and a final public event in the 280 building. Their work will be documented and made available to students. The course will also feature two national and international guest artists/scholars who will lead workshops, lecture, and engage with student work.

The course explores the relationship between performance and social justice which takes on a greater sense of urgency today as we face what Christina Sharpe would term `immanent and imminent death¿. That is, the persistent threat of domination and the lived experience of marginalized communities. Therefore, how do we attend to physical, social, and figurative annihilation through our art practices? How can we use our defiant and deviant bodies as tools for survival and transformation?

Open to credit and non-credit enrollment.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

This class offers small group tutoring for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students meet with an EIS instructor in groups of three for 1 1/2 hours each week. Students receive assistance with their class assignments for Art History, Liberal Arts and Studio classes. Activities may include discussing class concepts, checking comprehension, exploring ideas for papers or projects, revising papers, or practicing pronunciation and presentations.

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

This interdisciplinary course considers the topic of craft practices and the therapeutic through the lens of feminist pedagogy, including theories of touch and interembodiment. Students will examine the critical role craft and the domestic arts have played in raising questions surrounding feminism, gender, and labor practices in everyday histories. The course examines local and international projects centering on memory, trauma and collaboration. The class will explore the ethics of community collaborations and how the practice of making can cultivate a sense of community, well-being, and social capital.

What does it mean to be a successful artist? What does it take to function as an artist in today?s highly competitive art world? How can we envision a practice that is sustainable and exciting? In this highly diverse and interdisciplinary art world everything is possible, and everyday you have to hustle. In this three-hour seminar students will work on their artist statements, CVs, websites, and present artist talks. The course will focus on a series of visits to meet professional artists who find creative ways to sustain their practices. We will also visit various sites around Chicago including established galleries, apartment galleries, artist studios, museums, and meet the professionals who make these spaces function with their hustle.

This 3-week summer intensive course explores the intersection of performance and social justice, emphasizing the body as a site of resistance and defiance. Through lectures, discussions, performance exercises, and exhibition, students will investigate individual and collective strategies of defiance¿including breath, bodies taking up space, joy, rest, protest, and movement in solidarity. These acts, whether subtle or overt, these acts confront systems of power and affirm our existence.

Students will create two performance-based works¿including an installation and live performance¿culminating in a presentation at the SAIC galleries and a final public event in the 280 building. Their work will be documented and made available to students. The course will also feature two national and international guest artists/scholars who will lead workshops, lecture, and engage with student work.

The course explores the relationship between performance and social justice which takes on a greater sense of urgency today as we face what Christina Sharpe would term `immanent and imminent death¿. That is, the persistent threat of domination and the lived experience of marginalized communities. Therefore, how do we attend to physical, social, and figurative annihilation through our art practices? How can we use our defiant and deviant bodies as tools for survival and transformation?

Open to credit and non-credit enrollment.