Jessica Segall

Over the last 50 years, ecofeminist artists have used means such as photography, performance, and community engagement as a way to approach ecological crises, using the body as a site of resistance, kinship, and violence. Methods such as deep listening, endurance performance, slow cinema, foraging and gathering, cartography, and communal urban gardens are just a few of the approaches of ecofeminist artists. These artworks address ecological issues of sustainability, extraction, and marginalization that impress both upon vulnerable bodies and the nonhuman world. Many of these works fall within an economy of care, which we will examine as gendered and racialized work. This course is an art class, with an emphasis on reading and discussion. This course will research and discuss artists whose work combines feminist and ecological themes. We will look, listen, and read seminal works and artists with a focus on primary sources, such as artist and theorist writings, artwork, and interviews, and with a goal in mind to synthesize and respond to this subject in our own works. Each week will introduce a new topic or category of ecofeminist methodology. Each week will include a discussion board and a thematic exercise. The course will culminate in a final project.

This course will guide students through woodworking, metal, and casting with a focus on material history, function, and meaning. Introductory exercises in each material will be paired with inquiry into the value of working with wood, metal, water (casting), earth (clay), and fire (metalworking). We will look at the historical use and prevalence of material, including craft and modernism, to more ecologically conscious contemporary art. We will examine the sourcing and supply lines of material and their impact, practical uses, and weaknesses while completing weekly exercises to familiarize students with tools, materials, and approaches to working in built form.

This course will guide students through woodworking, metal, and casting with a focus on material history, function, and meaning. Introductory exercises in each material will be paired with inquiry into the value of working with wood, metal, water (casting), earth (clay), and fire (metalworking). We will look at the historical use and prevalence of material, including craft and modernism, to more ecologically conscious contemporary art. We will examine the sourcing and supply lines of material and their impact, practical uses, and weaknesses while completing weekly exercises to familiarize students with tools, materials, and approaches to working in built form.

This course will familiarize students with tools and methods in woodworking and metalwork, including joinery and welding. This practical knowledge will be put into a series of assignments considering interspecies design and using skills as a sculptor to make functional form with outdoor sculpture and ecological stewardship in mind. In this course, we will look at artists who work on constructed material form and public sculpture. We will also look at the merging of landscape architecture and gardens toward a holistic approach to building site-specific sculpture and ideate toward a proposal for public works.