Claire Fleming Staples

Core Studio is a year-long course that introduces students to both disciplinary and interdisciplinary art practice. Students learn about the methods, materials, tools and concepts in the areas of Surface (2-dimensional), Space (3-dimensional), and Time (4-dimensional), both independently and in relationship to one another. Students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials and themes being presented by faculty. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, historical with the contemporary, and makes visible the possibilities and variety of approaches in contemporary cultural production.

This studio course focuses on themes, practices, contexts, and questions undertaken by contemporary artists and designers. Research Studio I is a course that asks students to begin to develop and connect their own work and ideas with a diverse range of artists, designers, and communities. This course engages with cultural institutions including: museums, galleries, libraries and archives as resources of critical engagement.

Students will undertake various types of research activities: a) collecting and classification, b) mapping and diagramming, c) systems of measurement, d) social interaction, e) information search systems, f) recording and representation, and g) drawing and other notational systems.


Assignments in this course are faculty directed, open-media, interdisciplinary and idea based. The projects are designed to help students recognize their work habits, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Students will experience a wide range of research methods and making strategies. Critique as an evaluative process used in art and design schools, is a focus in this course. Various methods and models of critique are used in order to give students the tools to discuss their own work and the work of others.

In this class we will be learning about and making works that are both somatically engaging and virtually transportive. How can we remain in our bodies while also traveling into different worlds? How can we create portals into a desired reality that we can actually step into?
The course will cover methods of immersive installation including sound, projections, and working in the digital environment New Art City, with 3-D and video elements.

We will be looking at artists like Jacolby Satterwhite, Morehshin Allahyari, Pippoloti Rist, Yayoi Kusama, Tabita Rezaire, D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Anti-Body Corporation, Heesoo Leymusoom Kwon, & Peter Burr, and reading texts by Octavia Butler, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Laura Marks, Resmma Menakem , hannah baer and Deborah Kapchan.

Class work will include reading discussions, somatic exercises, and world-building workshops as well as technical demonstrations. Students will work in groups and individually on two major video installation projects, one smaller project, and lead a reading discussion.