In this course students will learn how individuals can facilitate the art experience for others. We will learn together how to expand ideas of what art is and how we can teach/facilitate it. Through mutual exploration, research, and invention, students in this course will develop personal methods for teaching art and guiding others through experiences with art. There is a strong emphasis made in this course on how teaching practice(s) are related to art making practice(s) and therefore how teaching is a means through which meaning is made for the self and the public. We will rely on study materials that engage Black arts perspectives with great attention to interdisciplinary mediums like sound, film, visual art, objects, scultpure and installations.
In this course I aim to help you—the developing art educator, teaching artist, person— construct a personal, engaging, and critical approach for teaching art. This semester you will develop a curriculum philosophy that will foreground your art and art-like knowledge, experiences, and research in order to prepare you to engage in art education discourses—whether they involve teaching or not—in a meaningful way alongside all sorts of populations, in a variety of settings, for many years to come. I want you to think about your own needs and what art education contexts/spaces are important to you. I want you to wildly imagine many possibilities for art education in various contexts/spaces/places.
- Teacher: Blair Smith
The purpose of Museums in Action: (Making It Irresistible!) is to provide students with opportunities to find out how museums make space and can make space with artists, objects, and installations for people and communities (ie. Black girls) who do not frequent and/or are neglected by museums/art institutions to engage their everyday creative livelihoods in critical, ethical and transformative ways. To explore how museums make this space, great emphasis and study will be on museums that use imaginative and alternative ways to engage young people and intergenerational communities with Black art and experience, making them irresistible. Students will learn the basics of the field of museum public engagement and education, actively participating in its practice through past and current programs and exhibitions at Krannert Art Museum.
- Teacher: Blair Smith