Critical & Activist Research - Degree Course

This course examines various ideas about and approaches to research as a creative, critical, and activist practice. We will explore both historical and contemporary positions regarding the process and materials of research across the humanities, the arts, art criticism, community practices, and arts administration. Students will experiment with a variety of research methodologies in the context of their own projects. Some examples include fieldwork, site visits, archival investigations, interviews, dialogs, group work, material explorations, and walking as research. The course hopes to serve as preparation for undergraduate and graduate exhibitions, forms of documentation, and creative, project-based and written theses. Potential artist works and cultural projects will be sourced from a variety of locations including, The Journal of Artistic Research (JAR), The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI), MARCH Journal of Art and Strategy, and Field: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism. Some specific artists and projects to be examined might include: Forensic Architecture, Group Material, Andrea Fraser, Press Press, Political Art Documentation and Distribution (PAD/D), and Monument Lab. Writers we could engage include, Anselm Strauss (Grounded Research), George Marcus (Ethnography), KimberlÈ Crenshaw (Law), Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Anthropology), and Leann Betasamosake Simpson (Indigenous Activist Research). Students will complete short, experimental research assignments modeled on readings, while pursuing a semester long individual or group research project.

3.0 College Credits