Course detail
Artists and Issues
FaVU-AIS-LAcad. year: 2023/2024
The course will examine several perspectives relevant to contemporary art. We will look at feminist and queer issues of representation and explore some ideas and essential thinkers whose work is influential in posing questions about the environmental crisis through visual art.
The course will look into the texts below through a detailed analysis and discussions; the selected texts, ranging from the disciplines of contemporary ecocriticism, antropology, cultural studies , botany , etc, reflect the state of Anthropocene, the fix in which "humankind" has found itself (in)voluntarily (?). We will problematize the equal share of "humankind" on Anthropocene, we will look at texts which not only ask the classical question What Is To Be Done, but also "what to say"? (to whom). We will compensate the highly theoretical texts offering a trully global/comprehensive insight into the reflection of the state of the world by reading about and watching plants in forrests, steppes, and meadows.
The course will aim at active participation of students. Two classes will be devoted to issues which they will vote about, and the assigned texts will be read and presented to the class by small teams. Two more classes will be devoted to workshops or lectures with invited guests.
Language of instruction
Number of ECTS credits
Mode of study
Guarantor
Entry knowledge
Rules for evaluation and completion of the course
The answered quiz questions regarding each text for homework have to be uploaded to the shared drive a day before the class. Before the last class in the semester, students will have to have fulfilled at least 60% of the assignments in order to be able to finish the remaining assignments by the end of the exam period.
Students will be assessed from the regular, continuous work during the semester.
Attendance is mandatory, students are allowed to miss two classes per semester.
Aims
Academic reflection of selected problems of contemporary art, a detailed knowledge of artworks and viewpoints of selected contemporary artists.
Study aids
Prerequisites and corequisites
Basic literature
Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chtulucene. (EN)
Tsing, Anne. Mushroom at the End of the World. (EN)
Jones, Amelia. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. (EN)
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome and Duckert Lowell: Veer Ecology (EN)
Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia (EN)
Sandilands, Catriona. Queer Ecologies (EN)
Morton, Timothy. All Art Is Ecological (EN)
Myvillages: The Rural. Whitechapel: Documents on Contemporary Art (EN)
Recommended reading
Classification of course in study plans
- Programme VUB Bachelor's
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-D , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective - Programme DES_B Bachelor's 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
- Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 3 year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
4 year of study, summer semester, elective
Type of course unit
Lecture
Teacher / Lecturer
Syllabus
- Feminist perspectives on the canon. How to study to become a woman artist. Griselda Pollock, Judy Chicago.
- Feminisms in art historical perspectives (1960s - 1990s) - curatorial perspective.
- Feminist and queer perspective (artists).
- Is all art ecological? Timothy Morton. Queering nature.
- Queering nature after Catriona Sandilands a Bruce Erickson
- Matsutake and ruins of the world after Anna Tsing. (Mushroom at the End of the World). Feral Atlas.
- Antropocene, capitalocene, chtulucene and Dona Haraway
- Biophilia after Edward Wilson
- Earthlings and New Climate Regime after Bruno Latour. Lovelock and his Gaia hypothesis.
- Artists on the peripheries. The Rural (Whitechapel), Řečiště a vlna (Ondřej Navrátil).
- Sádlo, Pokorný, Haluzík.Aspects of landscape from geological and anthropic perspective. Field trip.
- Field trip.