REQUIRED/CORE COURSES

ARTE 670/870 Critical Perspectives on Art Education: History, Theory and Practice (3 credits)

Semester: Fall Day & Time: Monday 18:30-20:30 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: Lorrie Blair, lorrie.blair@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students develop critical reading and writing skills while adding to their understanding of trends past and present that have shaped the field of art education.  

ARTE 672/872 Advanced Critical Analysis (3 credits -prerequisite ARTE 670)

Semester: Winter Day & Time: Monday 18:30-20:30 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: David Pariser, david.pariser@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students develop advanced skills in critical analysis, academic writing and library research. Assignments include compiling and writing a review of literature on a topic of research or professional interest.

ARTE 680/880 Foundations for Inquiry (3 credits)

Semester: Fall Day & Time: Wednesday 16:00-18:00 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: Anita Sinner, anita.sinner@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students are introduced to the basic concepts, terminology, and contexts of inquiry in art education. Students learn about the practice of systematic inquiry, including: identifying and articulating a topic or question; situating the inquiry within a theoretical framework; relating the inquiry to art education practices; and selecting appropriate inquiry procedures. Each student develops a proposal for a small-scale project related to his/her particular art education interests.

ARTE 682/882 Research Practice (3 credits -prerequisite ARTE 680 )

Semester: Winter Day & Time: Wednesday 16:00 - 18:00 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: Lorrie Blair, lorrie.blair@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students conduct a small-scale research project based on their own research proposal. Students are introduced to appropriate forms and practices for conducting the project and presenting the results.

ARTE 884 Doctoral Seminar (3 credits)

Semester: Fall Day & Time: Wednesday 18:30-20:30 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: Vivek Venkatesh, vivek.venkatesh@concordia.ca

This course addresses research and communication, thesis writing, and professional practice.             

STUDIOS AND TOPICS

ARTE 606/806 Studio Inquiry (3 credits):   

Satire and the City: Construction and commentary on urban life in Montreal

Semester: Fall  Day & Time: Thursdays 14:00-18:00 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: David Pariser, david.pariser@concordia.ca

This is a mostly hands-on course. We will take our inspiration from the work of artists like Red Grooms –who created installations like “Ruckus Manhattan”- a collaborative project that resulted in the creation of a satirical vision of NYC in papier mache and found materials . Grooms has created other Ruckii- from London to Tokyo. We will also reference the photographic work of JR –who has just had a big show at the Brooklyn Museum. Montreal is a world-class city and needs the same treatment. This would be the major project. We will also reference and appropriate from the Swiss artists Fischli and Weiss. They famously created a film called “The Way Things Go.” This film documents an amazing sequence of unlikely events where real tables collapse, ladders walk, and potatoes rumble down inclined planes flashing knives. These Swiss artists are the heirs of artists like Rube Goldberg, and Alexander Calder- especially his Circus. In class we will look at artists’ satirical creations based on the theme of the city. Some class time will be devoted to developing your satirical projects. These projects will look critically and satirically at physical aspects of Montreal. Projects will use recycled materials (junk/trash) and can result in installation(s) that will be visually documented.

ARTE 606/806 Studio Inquiry (3 credits): 

A/r/tographic Propositions: Walking with Public Art

Semester: Winter  Day & Time: Monday 14:00-18:00 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: Anita Sinner, anita.sinner@concordia.ca

We explore a/r/tographic and new materialist concepts and practices through personal geographies as artists-researchers-teachers in relation to walking, public art and artwork scholarship. Adopting a lens of living inquiry, we share in a process of conversational lectures, student-led workshops, and creative forums with guest speakers to generate pedagogic propositions of ‘mattering’ with, in and through walking with art. Engaging in a practice of co-creative activities (making-doing-thinking) to articulate our ‘response-ability,’ we attend to the pulse of ‘becoming-with’ the spaces between body-object-environment as artful encounters. With a/r/tographic renderings to guide us, and in response to Haraway’s geostories, our conversazione will culminate in a research exhibition to curate possibilities of diffraction-in-action with critical, experimental, speculative, non-representational (and more) openings of a/r/tographic production.

ARTE 660/850 Selected Topics in Art Education (3 credits):

Museum and Art Gallery Education: Theory, Practice, and Research

Semester: Fall Day & Time: Tuesday 16:00-18:00 Place: EV-5.825
Instructor: Richard Lachapelle, richard.lachapelle@concordia.ca

In this course, we will address selected aspects of the theory, practice and research of museum and art gallery education. This course will include a variety of learning activities including readings, discussions, museum and gallery site visits, research projects, student presentations and, when possible, guest lecturers. To launch the course, we will begin by visiting several Montreal museums. These visits will allow us to identify the specificities of museum education as it applies to various visitor groups (children, school groups, groups with special needs, adolescents, adults, seniors, and families) and to different types of museums. We will also address how museum learning is different from learning in other educational contexts, and how the objectives and outcomes of museum learning can vary depending on the type of setting in which it takes place (museums, public sculpture gardens, artist-run centers, art galleries, etc.). Over the duration of the course, students will engage in various research activities. Such activities may include visitor tracking, on-site observation, visitor needs studies, comparative or targeted studies of didactic materials and museum-related educational strategies. Student evaluation will be based on several minor research activities conducted at intervals during the term, a mid-term research report and a final term paper on a museum-related topic of the student's choice. The course instructor is a 1993 Getty Doctoral Fellow; he is well-known and respected for his museum education research over the past three decades. His professional experience as a museum educator includes positions at both the National Museum of Science and Technology (1979-1980) and the National Gallery of Canada (1986-1995).

ARTE 660/850 Selected Topics in Art Education (3 credits):

Materiality and New Materialism in Art and Art Education

Semester: Winter Day & Time: Tuesday 16:00-18:00 Place: EV-5.825

Instructor: Kathleen Vaughan, Kathleen.Vaughan@concordia.ca

Through both hands-on practice and engagement with theory, we will explore the ‘material turn’ in art and art education, considering the pedagogical potential of working through the cultural histories of our preferred artistic media, the colonial/decolonizing aspects of material practice, and connections between new materialism, Indigenous ways of knowing and research-creation. Further, we will explore how we learn to use art materials and what a materials-conscious art education can contribute to practices of sustainability. Students will have research-creation and written options for their final coursework.

Readings will include selections from Richard Sennett (The Craftsman), Tim Ingold (Making), Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt (Carnal Knowledge: Towards a ‘New Materialism’ Through the Arts), Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass) as well as selections from the work of Karen Barad and Jane Bennett. Our course will also be connected with FBRS 397A: Topics in Fibres Structures: Wool and Sustainable Making through a daylong ‘skill share,' one Saturday in late January/early February 2021, exact date TBD. Students are responsible for ensuring their attendance at this compulsory event.