CERA 398 A 2234 (Winter 2024)

CERA 398/A (Winter 2024): SPECIAL TOPICS IN CERAMICS

Re-figure is a special topics course in ceramics focusing on human and non-human figure through various modes of representation. While to figure means to give shape to something, to refigure implies an alteration whether through the making or conception of an idea or form. Modeling and construction skills in clay will be emphasized alongside an interdisciplinary examination of historical and contemporary cultural codes pertaining to the body in order to grasp, twist, reject or de-structure them.  

Refigure is also a decolonial class. It questions an ancient painting technique, "the intersector veil" adapt to sculpture, as well as the history of otherness. This class re-figures and re-configures the idea of a course with a vertical teaching project. Thus decolonizing the syllabus is not (just) about adding names of minority or southern artists. It's about rethinking the making and thinking of lurning an teaching as an changeable organic matter.