Using the Clark Art Institutes permanent collection, we will systematically identify images that carry power related content, and create artistic responses that challenge, reinvent, and broaden our, and the public’s, understanding of how these images exist in the world. We will be working with visual artists, curators, and choreographers/dancers to create visual and movement responses that then will be documented into a short video to be shared with the public.

If you are interested in group discussion about art, art making, dance, video work, some writing, and how power can exist in art, join us! Serious inquiries only!

In this class students will explore the motif of dreams in art and literature. They will study surrealism, its key players and principles.The class will culminate in an exploration of magical realism and its emergence in South America. Students will be expected to keep a dream journal and will interact with many different forms of media including film.

Films:Un Chien Andalou by Louise Buñuel, Waking Life by Richard Linklater, Fantastic Planet by Rene Laloux

Readings : The Surrealist Manifesto, Dream Poems, Surrealist Poems, Surrealist Stories , Magical Realist Stories.

This class will be an exploration of how art can transform spaces and alter viewers’ relationships with and perceptions of them. Together we will frequently visit local art installations as inspiration for our own work. When we are not viewing work, class time will run as studio time as students create their own site-specific pieces with the opportunity to work with both digital (sound, light, projection) and physical (clay, wood, found/thrifted objects, recycling) resources. Students will choose a space on campus to focus on and if interested the class as a whole will have the opportunity to collaborate on a piece to be displayed outside at MASS MoCA in April.

The bare basics of “adulting:” How to plan and cook basic meals that are not instant ramen. How to maintain a car, change a flat tire and pack a basic safety kit. How to realistically budget based on your paycheck, open a bank account and pay a bill. Establishing, improving and fixing your credit score and why it is so important. How and when to file 1040ez taxes. Basic home tools and their uses. How to handle a blown circuit breaker and a plumbing leak. Who to call for which emergencies.

In this class we will be rehearsing and mounting a production of the musical “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” Students are accepted to the class based on an audition and the class will culminate with a full production of the show

For hundreds of years, board games were static and unchanging artifacts of ancient design. These designs were uncritical and many times obtuse in their choices of rules and customs. Modern game development began to challenge these assumptions, and especially in the last 35 years games have developed revolutionary design elements. Cooperative games, simultaneous turns, group games, asymmetric games, and catch-up mechanics have changed the field radically. We will first try to define what a game actually is, and then begin to dive into the mechanics and aesthetic elements that make a gaming experience. We will analyze board games with a critical eye, understanding how each piece in a game contributes (or doesn’t) to the final experience in playing that game, why certain pieces are necessary, and how they can be improved upon and combined. Our class time will consist of, predominantly, playing a game during class time and then analyzing it afterwards and outside of class, with written analyses for each game session. Finally, we will work exercises in improving current games and in making our games, with a final project to make a complete game using any mechanics or elements that students find most fun.

What power do we have as individuals to shape the world around us?

As we follow the threads of our own attention, we will weave a small and finite world together. We will explore our perceptions of time, how we choose to turn thoughts into gestures and how to articulate and embody the world we desire. Grounding ourselves at the loom and weaving the fabric of our thoughts, inquiries, resentments and joy, we will create a tangible record of time spent.

We will follow metaphors throughout history, creating a robust sense of self as we better understand the all too overlooked human staple- cloth. Beginning with a history of “the thread”- we will explore mindfulness practices as well as the origins of “technology”, which begins with twisting raw fibers together to create a strong and useful twine. That thread will carry us all over the world and into different pockets of commerce and injustice, magic and folktale- and root us deep in our own humanity. Using Michel Foucault’s concept of the “heterotopia”; we will use the loom and the history of cloth to weave an experimental world of our own making.

The outcome of this class will be emergent: guided by collaboration and a recognition of desires as they are informed through our curriculum.