Limits & Sanctuary

15 week course

Today we contend with impacts of the Great Acceleration amidst an increasingly unstable socio-ecological context. Prior generations fixated on growth and accumulation, yet today many youth in particular are fixated on sustainability, scaling back, and taking lessons from indigenous and anti-colonial perspectives. To proceed we must ask ourselves: What is the consequence of our actions? In this course we will seek to identify socio-ecological personal, local, and collective limitations in order to deepen into places of refuge and creativity there-in.

This course is geared toward creatives reckoning with their relationship to place, materiality, and voice in this complex time. Together we will examine the implications of a bioregional perspective and consider how we might cultivate socio-ecological literacy through our art practice. We will critically evaluate our relationship to materials in the art making process alongside bioregional investigation and creative expression.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Critically evaluate your relationship to materials in the art making process.
Establish familiarity with natural, synthetic, wild-crafted, and recycle-based art materials and practitioners taking up this work locally and internationally.
Establish research skills and build local connections relevant to your area of interest as an artist, ecologist, scientist, or social worker.
Increased awareness of bioregional history, ecology, and culture to develop a stronger relationship between person and place.
Knowledge of the transformative potential of holistic and self-determined approaches to art making.
Development of a somatic and intellectually informed perspective on a socio-ecological topic specific to your bioregion.
Softening, unraveling, and deepening into relationship to place. Students will cultivate a sense of place the relationship to their bioregion