1. Social and Sustainable Art Practices
Matthew Burke, Visual Art
Background
The Challenge
Student Work
As an instructor in the Visual Art department, I realized we needed to offer a course that addresses sustainability. It helps students to go outside their major for an elective that addresses this topic. However, bringing the topic in-house, to interweave sustainability into our major, made sense. Art-making, on the one hand, seems very self-centered to our students (a larger discussion), but they love learning about making art. On the other hand, very real problems that have more to do with the environment, social consciousness, and responsibility appear to almost eclipse their passion. How do the two fit together? That is a question only a course within their program of study can address. Thus, I developed Art 300/500—Special Topics: Social and Sustainable Art Practices.
I designed this course to make space for students to think about making art. In studio courses we face a unique challenge: students need time to think in class. The rest of the university has been “flipping” courses, giving students time to think outside of class and then asking them to produce work in class to help them become more comfortable with producing specific kinds of work. I realized my students in Art 300/500 needed better conceptual grounding for their work and that I would have to “unflip” my course, adding more lectures, discussions, and readings to formal class time and giving students less structured time to make art, since they were most comfortable with making/producing and least comfortable with conceptualizing.
I realized that the studio hours we allocate for an art class, usually 6 contact hours per week, is on its own insufficient for an immersive experience. Students always need to devote time outside class for concentrating on their work. Here I was reducing those contact hours even more. What I had targeted to finish, a timber frame structure, then was revised as a timber frame work-in-process. We would not be able to fully finish the structure and work through two other assignments. The process of hand-cutting joints is laborious, and students, while satisfied when they completed a task, each remarked how frustratingly slow the process was. (By the way, the aspect of interrupting their sense of a work “time-signature” is something I’ll continue to challenge.) However, re-assigning meaning to the project—from what had been an intentionally finished work, to one that would be left open-ended—felt like a diminishment to the class. I felt it, and they did too. But in order to move on, it had to be done. The next time we engage in timber work (for it’s a beneficial team-building, hand-skill honing activity), I’ll frame the project in terms of a long-term project. I’ll set expectations from the start.
The Goals
Dispel the myth that topics in sustainability and creativity are elitist constructs by emphasizing the inherent accessibility of each, especially as these ideas regard human relations.
Provide those who identify as “non-creative” the opportunity to engage in creative work and thereby aid in an exploration of and amendment to their definition of creativity; offer those who identify as “creative” the same opportunity.
Provide students the opportunity to be creatively involved in projects related to habitat, agriculture, and civic visual discourse, especially as these topics relate to issues surrounding climate change, sustainability, and class division.
Foster an awareness of the general topics associated with climate change and sustainability through lectures, readings, and engaged learning.
Introduce the traditional (time-tested) fabrication practices of timber framing and bee hive construction with an emphasis on hand-skill development, body coordination, and optimal group dynamics.
Provide students with an introductory opportunity to author a social artwork—either individually or in groups —as a means of extending creative practice beyond the studio environment.
Reflections
But another challenge arose: there wasn’t enough time for either studio work or text-based activities. While designing the course, I had no idea time would be such an issue. As I look toward offering this class again in the fall, I plan to address the problem by reducing the studio work to leave sufficient time for text-based activities. As for last year, I had to modify my approach about one-third of the way into the course when faced with this realization. I increased the studio time and condensed the reading. It was not ideal, as I was then unable to introduce some of the ideas and topics, but enough of the topics got through in the end.
Course Change
To overcome this challenge, I had to reallocate the way my students spent scheduled class time. In studio art classes we traditionally have discussions and readings, but they comprise about 8% of the semester's class time. This course was designed with 20% lecture/reading/ discussion and 80% studio. By increasing the amount of L/R/D time, I hoped to give students more exposure to concepts and theories that would inform their work.