Topics in 3D: Queering Objects
PUFA 3230 (CRN: 3296)
Wednesdays 9:00am-2:40pm
In this course, students will reflect upon the significance of objects in everyday life and how the design of everyday objects constitutes a manner of being in the world. Artists working 3-dimensionally have often gravitated towards the ready-made as a way to address the body, history, and relationality. This course takes up this urge to utilize the everyday with an emphasis on how re-sculpting found objects can make new meanings. In Queer Phenomenology Sara Ahmed suggests that queerness involves a particular orientation in relation to the objects that appear and disappear around us. Queering objects entails engaging in a “politics of disorientation,” probing beyond the accepted norms for how we perceive and use our bodies and things. This class proposes that queering the object unleashes its capacity to disrupt and reorder social and special relations and activates a sculptural moment. The task for students is to queer their objects in terms of their use but also in terms of their meaning, engaging in a process of self-fashioning.
Faculty Bio:
H. Lan Thao Lam’s practice is grounded in research, installation, object-making, film and photography. For over 15 years, they have been part “Lin + Lam,” producing works engaging issues of immigration, sites of trauma, national identity and historical memory. Their work have been exhibited at 2018 Busan Biennale; 3rd Guangzhou Triennial; Korean Arts Council; Taiwan International Documentary Festival; Stedelijk MuseumThe Kitchen, The New Museum and the Queens Museum. Lam’s work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including Art Forum, the New York Times, Art Journal, The Huffington Post, Time Out Hong Kong and Art Asia Pacific. Their awards include Canada Council for the Arts and Vera List Center for Art and Politics Fellowship. Lam is India China Institute 2018 -2020 Faculty Fellow.
