Yani Kong

Instructor

Availability:

Education:

PhD, Contemporary Art, SFU
MA, Theory, Culture and Politics, Trent University
BA, Art and Culture Studies, SFU

Bio

Yani Kong is a writer, editor, and scholar of contemporary art. Her writing appears in publications across Canada and internationally. Their research areas are reception aesthetics, contemporary art history, digital ecology and eco-aesthetics. As a member of the Low Carbon Research Methods Working Group and director of the Small File Media festival, they explore sustainable practices in streaming media.

Websites:


Research Interests

Yani’s research interests include reception aesthetics, contemporary art history, digital ecology and eco-aesthetics.

Courses

Course Name Department Course Code Term
Media History MHIS 405 26/FA

Description

This course is designed to enable students to focus on various issues, concepts and ideas relevant to contemporary photography. Consideration will be given to the changing role of photography in relation to new technologies and societal transitions. While the historical evolution of photography will inform much of the discussion, the emphasis throughout will centre around current applications and critical thinking about the medium in art and society at large.

Each section of this course runs with a different topic. See here .

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

Humanities HUMN 100 26/FA

Description

Focusing on issues and modes of literacy and visual/textual analysis, this course helps students to develop the tools necessary for reflective and engaged looking, reading, thinking, and writing about art, media, design, and text. Analysis of both visual images/objects and texts from a variety of historical periods, from ancient antiquity to the 15th century, will be emphasized through shared case studies (from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe), keywords, and themes. Throughout, an integrated approach to the humanities will be prioritized, involving the development of critical thinking, writing skills, and class participation and engagement. Combining weekly lectures and smaller breakout seminar sessions for art, design and media, students will be exposed to the specificities of a Humanities curriculum (drawing from Art Media + Design History, Visual Culture, English, Composition and Rhetoric, and Cultural and Media Studies), and to the conceptual and practical skills necessary for further courses in Critical + Cultural Studies. Art from the past and present will be grounded in a broader context, with emphasis placed on processes of perception and the cultural meaning of images and objects. The point is to interrogate how representation, both through its production and reception, becomes politically activated, and to develop the critical and theoretical tools to begin to deconstruct and acknowledge this process.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

Humanities HUMN 101 26/FA

Description

Continuing with the development of modes of literacy and visual/textual analysis initiated in HUMN 100: Academic Core I, this course will prioritize how representation makes meaning, and how art, media, design, and textual practices participate in a broader social and political sphere. Analysis of both visual images/objects and texts from a variety of historical periods, from the 16th century to the present day, will be emphasized through shared case studies (from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas), keywords, and themes. Throughout, an integrated approach to the humanities will be prioritized, involving the development of critical thinking, writing skills, and class participation and engagement. Combining weekly lectures and smaller breakout seminar sessions for art, design and media, students will be exposed to the specificities of a Humanities curriculum (drawing from Art Media + Design History, Visual Culture, English, Composition and Rhetoric, and Cultural and Media Studies), and to the conceptual and practical skills necessary for further courses in Critical + Cultural Studies, as well as their subsequent studies as a whole. As students persist in building the skill set necessary for critical and contextual inquiry, emphasis will be placed on processes of visual perception, the cultural meaning of images and objects, and their many intersections with knowledge, power, and technology. Throughout, students will be encouraged to situate their own practice in relation to a broader history of representation, in order to articulate their own perspective on what it means to participate in cultural production.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.