< ECU Directory

Rebecca (Becky) Bair

Assistant Professor, Foundation

Availability:

Education:

BFA
MFA

Bio

Rebecca (Becky) Bair is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is rooted in photography. Becky was an AICAD teaching fellow in 2022 at OCAD University, and a sessional faculty member at ECU since 2019. She joined the faculty of Culture and Community full-time in 2024. Becky teaches in Foundation, prioritizing diverse, diasporic, Black, interdisciplinary, and cultural methodologies, materials, and makers.

Websites:

Research Interests

Becky Bair’s research explores the possibilities of specific representation and of identity through abstraction, non-figuration, and interdisciplinary materiality. Her artistic, professional and educational goals revolve around common themes of celebrating Black plurality as well as creating the conditions for interpersonal and intercultural care. Becky’s work considers light and shadow, creating the conditions for collaborating with the sun by recognizing the significance of its rays in the making of melanized skin, as well as its environmental influence on perception. She often works with non-archival materials which will change in the presence of the sun as well as with UV sensitive materials like Cyanotypes. Becky is deeply involved in and committed to the decolonization of art and design academics by focusing on anti-racist and diverse ways of being, knowing, making, and learning.

Courses

Course Name Department Course Code Term
Foundation Studio Courses FNDT 146 27/SP

Description

This course introduces students to photography as an artistic medium. Students will learn analogue and digital ways of production, utilizing photographic equipment and camera functions. They will explore the darkroom as a space of experimentation and production by working with analogue black and white film and producing prints. An introduction to digital image production and workflow will support students' understanding of the broad range of the medium's applications. Students will be introduced to technical and conceptual approaches that will enable them to produce photo-based artwork. Lectures, critiques, and discussions will foster students' criticality and provide the historical and theoretical language necessary to discuss and formulate ideas.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

Foundation Studio Courses FNDT 175 27/SP

Description

This studio provides core instruction for photography and new media + sound art majors. It introduces students to vocabularies, techniques, and methodologies of media arts, including aspects of photography, video, sound, interactivity, and media installation. Through workshops and in-class studio sessions, discussions, and critiques students will explore a range of approaches and processes that form the basis of media arts practices. In conjunction with the acquisition of basic technical skills, this course will emphasize content, creative process, research, and critical issues in media arts.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

Foundation Studio Courses FNDT 108 26/FA

Description

This course explores a range of creative processes to develop ways to connect thinking, making, and writing in an art and design context. Students will learn to contextualize projects in social, political, ecological and personal ways and engage in creative problem solving through iteration, experimentation, improvisation, and adapting to accidental discoveries as a generative part of the creative process. Through process-based learning and practice, students will experiment with interdisciplinary explorations framed by research skill development through collaborative projects, peer reviews, discussions, individual assignments, and critique-based studio sessions. Students will produce multiple versions of ideas from concept to content to creatively solve problems while determining new ways to view art + design practice overall.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

Foundation Studio Courses FNDT 165 26/FA

Description

Foundation Core is an introduction to a breadth of conceptual, technical and disciplinary approaches that includes 2D, 3D and 4D disciplines. Exploring different forms of conceptual and material-based inquiry, this studio course focuses on the understanding and articulation of core values shared across contemporary art, design, and media disciplines. Foundation Core emphasizes practices and concepts that provide a solid platform for any of the degree-focused studio cores offered in the second semester.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.