ARTS 290 Art Outside the Bounds: Wanlass Artists in Residence

A Sustained Environment: Understanding and Caring for Bio-Cultural Diversity.

This course coincides with the unprecedented environmental and pandemic challenges of our time, bringing a new urgency to understanding the complex and dynamic interrelations between human culture and the natural environment.   Using embodied pedagogy to incorporate our bodies into the learning process, as well as indigenous, ecofeminist, and intersectional frameworks,  we will analyze pressing ecological issues including climate change, nature rights,  green capitalism, extractive economies, and environmental justice. We will reach to other environmentally focused resources on campus; host guest lectures and artist led workshops; conduct research and fieldwork in archives, libraries, and outdoor locations; and visit local initiatives that intersect art, science and environmental practices.  Utilizing a range of contemporary aesthetic strategies, we will develop a research-based project to study and present environmental problematics around Occidental campus.  Projects are expected to have a multidisciplinary approach, and can be developed individually or in collaboration.  This course is open to all majors.

Previous Wanlass Artists-in-Residence include: Lucky Dragons, CamLab, Rafa Esparza and Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle.