Students: Still looking for a class to complete your Spring schedule?  How about one that includes art, performance, and local activism?  Look no further!  Illustration full-time faculty Ben Katchor and Parsons instructor Jim Osman will be offering a course called “Urban Interventions” and there are still slots open!  Here’s the official description from the flier above (click on it for a full-size version.):

In this studio, students will investigate possibilities of using the means and methods of public art, street art, urban play and civic activism in order to reframe and critique contemporary notions of urban revitalization and urban beautification.  Three basic methods will be used to explore these ideas.

1.    Low budget Public sculpture
2.    Street Theater/performance
3.    Pamphleteering or Print intervention

The site for student work will be 14th Street between First and Sixth Avenues.  Our studio partner will be the Union Square Partnership, a community-based, not-for-profit organization that has been a catalyst behind the neighborhood’s transition.  Students will address issues of community participation, communication, economies of scale, the impact and meaning of message in the public sphere, particularly in the context of multiple and often alienated audiences.

Through both research and art/design responses, students will develop a critical understanding of the visual landscape and roles that social imaginary plays in the complex processes of urban transformation.  Students will develop their proposals to a final stage, ready for implementation.  Our partner may implement some projects.

PUIC 2000–3 credits.  Open to Majors, non-majors, Lang and Milano students, sophomores and above.

This is a great opportunity to put your art into action and get college credit while you’re doing it.  So get active, get artistic, and sign up!