Topics in 2D: Decolonizing Materiality

PUFA 3220, CRN 1924

This course invites students to reconsider material choice in their art practices—specifically the use of non-art materials to challenge, disrupt, or subvert traditional approaches to artmaking. Students will experiment with material and process as a source for meaning and metaphor in their 2D practice. Using decolonizing methodologies, students will examine their own creative practice through personalized research, focused exploration of contemporary artists, and an examination of the role that history, power, and identity has on their creative pursuits. Through lectures, presentations and discussions students will be introduced to examples of material choice, process, and spatial organization beyond the western canon. We will consider artists like Margarita Cabrera, Tomashi Jackson, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Patricia Miranda, Jeffery Gibson, etc. alongside the writings of Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Stefano Harney, Fred Moten, Robin Diangelo, and Ibram X. Kendi.

Prerequisite: Core Studio 1: 2D or 1000 level Painting