Description:

This course examines the major themes and ideas of modernism through deconstructing the modern social imaginary and the ways in which artists engage with social ideals and historical realities. Though modernism and modern art are often associated with utopian visions of society, art has also functioned as a mirror for contemporary culture, sometimes raising awareness about urgent issues or working towards change. In this course students will explore the modern social imaginary through various artists, exhibitions, and movements, and through a variety of traditional and non-traditional media including collage, photography, and mass media. Core themes to be studied will include attitudes, ideas and theories of modernism and postmodernism, modern art and the effects of historical events, sociological changes and advances in technology.

Description:

More than two thirds of our planet is covered by oceans, inviting a vast space for observation, imagination, and engagement. In this field class, students will examine contemporary human relationships with the ocean as a means of bridging social practice and social responsibility during an ecological era marked by threat and harms to sea life and health. This course will focus on the Salish Sea watershed system where we are located, including the estuaries, rivers and streams that flow into the sea. Perspectives on understanding and interpreting the ocean will be explored through embodied exploration, lectures, readings, screenings, guest speakers, seminars, student projects, and field trips. Resources for this course will be situated in the intersections of ecological studies and Indigenous scholarship and ways of knowing, through voices that are scientific, poetic, historical, and contemporary. Cross-disciplinary art and design work will also be explored in relation to specific species and communities in the Salish Sea ecosystem, building an understanding of current events and climate changes affecting the creatures and stories that inhabit our local waters.

Description:

This fourth year three credit course gives students an in depth experience with curatorial projects. Building on the third year SOCS 310 Studies in Curatorial Practices, students develop their knowledge with a focus on contemporary examples, case studies and the key components necessary for organizing an exhibition. In this course students will investigate a specific topic or issue relevant to a variety of practices and critical concerns related to curatorial projects. They will develop writing projects directly related to proposing and installing an exhibition with the potential to realize a project. The emphasis will be upon the development and articulation of critical and speculative thinking that will encourage personal research and prepare students for further study or practice whether through future curatorial studies, self-curating or curating in relation to one's own practice and curatorial projects with one's peers. Potential assignments and outcomes may include an exhibition plan, curatorial proposals, grant proposal writing, and criteria for curating a space or a virtual exhibition.

Description:

This is a course of art historical anecdotes from the 20th and 21st centuries that reveal the failure of Global North art, architecture, and design to deliver on their empty promises of "progress." By foregrounding feminist, postcolonial, and ecological theories, we will expose how the modernist promise of progress was built on and perpetuated exclusion —of difference, of the non-Western, of the non-human, of the Other.

Description:

In this course students will explore a specific area of interest in feminist, gender, and cultural studies, such as figuration and the body, the maternal order, feminism, or the reconsideration of art and language by feminism. This course will consider special topics of interest in the area of feminist, gender and cultural studies.

Description:

This course explores the theory and application of extended realities (XR), such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). Students will investigate how immersive media can reshape human perception through creative uses across disciplines. Students will engage in critical readings and project-based learning. By applying technical frameworks, narrative strategies and ethical considerations, students will engagedon the social implications of immersive environments.

Description:

This course will cover the standard practices of modeling, texturing and look development. As well as learning workflows to optimize assets for short films. Different techniques for tackling organic/hardsurfac modeling, fur modeling/ hair system, environment modeling and cloth modeling will be practiced. There will be an emphasis on file management, workflow and optimization of models, environments, uvs, and textures for lighting and rendering.

Description:

This upper-division course provides an in-depth study of creature animation through the lens of animal anatomy, biomechanics, and behavioral analysis. Students will integrate artistic interpretation with technical execution to animate both realistic and fantasy creatures. Emphasis is placed on understanding anatomical structures and motion principles to inform believable animation choices. The course covers efficient rig control systems, including IK/FK switching, space switching, and rotation order optimization. Students will develop animation cycles that represent distinct quadruped gaits—such as walk, trot, canter, gallop, and run—and learn to implement effective workflows using industry-standard 3D animation tools. By the end of the course, students will be able to analyze and synthesize animal behaviors and expressions to create performances that demonstrate authenticity and appeal, with technical sophistication for the creation of a portfolio piece.

Description:

This course will cover the basics of Blender, as well as more intermediate techniques with a focus on stylised FX and hybrid 2.5D animation. We will be exploring hand-drawn, intuitive ways of working, and the main tools covered include grease pencil, modifiers, geometry nodes, scripting, rendering with Cycles/EEVEE, and the Blender in-engine compositor.

Description:

This course is built around the practical and aesthetic aspects of the student's creative process in the production of students' capstone year film projects and future productions. The point of view is primarily of the creative producer. Topics include: designing your production from concept to release; director's workbook and prep, from the point of view of the producer; dramaturgical analysis of a dramatic script and breakdown of script for casting, from the point of view of the producer; working with a casting director; working with a script supervisor; post production supervision; advanced budgeting and scheduling; getting the most out of your cast; releases and contracts; music copyright and clearances; working with a composer; managing post production; release and marketing. Teaching methods include lectures and workshops. Students are expected to come into class with a written project (script or proposal) that they want to develop over the course of the semester; the project can be either their capstone year project or their first project after graduation, or a project for a colleague/ student's that they are producing.

Description:

Community Projects: Foodways is an interdisciplinary studio course that focuses on place-based food systems and social/cultural food practices through lenses of art and design. Site visits, readings, field studies and guests will provide a variety of perspectives on food, challenging students to locate this work in broader ecological, political and social systems. Work in this course will connect to the Creative Food Research Collaboratory, Food Systems Lab, and Circular Food Innovation Lab, along with numerous food rescue, food security and environmental stewardship initiatives. This experiential learning will provide context for a series of studio-based explorations mapping to topics of food sovereignty, food waste and food justice. In the studio, we will experiment with food-as-material, tableware, cultural gatherings around food and storytelling foodways.

Description:

This course will take a graphic and visual approach to authorship, narrative and storytelling while exploring the potential of risograph printing. Informed by the study of graphic literature and comics, this studio will develop and support practices in authoring, drawing and disseminating graphic narratives. The class will be structure around creative prompts aimed at workshopping concepts and developing skills in drawing and risograph printing while reading assignments in graphic literature will support our making. The course will culminate with six week self-directed term project.

Description:

In this course, we ask questions about how we know the ecologies we are a part of, what is our relationship with the living planet and how can visual communication contribute to public discourse at a time of climate crisis. Through design research methodologies and studio practice, we explore our conception, understanding and relationship with our environment and how we can shape/reshape these with greater empathy and accountability. Along the way, we will grow our knowledge in visual design theories and practices such as semiotics, information visualization, material practice and environmental design—which enrich design vocabulary and enable new ways of knowing and sharing our world.

Description:

This course will include several projects for students to explore expressions of identity and culture through small-scale metalwork adornment and storytelling. Initial project focus will be on personal expressions of each students positionality and self identity, with emphasis on responsibility to community and environment.

Description:

This course provides a comprehensive exploration of the dynamic role of sound and music in film and animation and provides points of departure for students interested in exploring music and sound as practicing media makers. Course content will explore historical music context, contemporary practice case studies, and innovative techniques in the world of music and sound. Students will learn film score analysis techniques, gain practical skills in working with composers, understand post workflow, and foster effective musical creative communication with an eye to future projects and proposals. Emphasizing both traditional and experimental approaches, this bespoke course encourages students to develop their own musical vision and apply learned concepts to their media projects.

Description:

It has been said that solidarity is the political version of love. Together, we will read narratives and epistles that help us to consider why solidarity is important, and how to build and sustain it. What have people been able to accomplish together that they may not achieve alone? How does solidarity as a lens help us to keep learning, growing and organizing together? Starting with the principle that people are part of the earth, not separate from the land and waters giving us life, we will explore how interdependence and reciprocity are related to solidarity.

Description:

Reflecting on the past, each age wonders whether it lives in more interesting - or perhaps challenging - times. How do we assess

Description:

This course explores how design lives within and alongside natural systems, human values, and planetary limits. We will examine how designers are responding to ecosystems, beings, and patterns of life that have evolved in ways can't be known, fully known or replicated.

Description:

Why do we laugh? What's up with that banana on the wall? How is humour different if it is in a poem, a sculpture or a film?

Description:

In this course, students will learn and practice how to transform text into visual imagery while exploring the principles of colour and light, including both additive and subtractive colour systems. Through in-class exercises and home projects, they will examine the relationship

Description:

This class is a special topics course that focuses on Illustration as it relates to popular voice, political protest, and dissemination of resistant/revolutionary ideas. Production will be framed as an expression of communal agency and global Southern tradition. Through case studies students will explore the historical precedent of communicative forms that engage community in different dialogical spheres. The class will explore forms of engagement such as the protest poster, booklets and pamphlets, journalistic writing, and cultural preservation through art. Methodologies will focus on maximising output with minimal resources; equipping students with an understanding of how to operate as cultural producers in any environment. Students will work with media that relate materially to collective work, widespread dissemination of ideas, and powerful imagery.

Description:

In this course, students will expand their illustration and printmaking practices through a deep investigation of materiality. Working with monotype printmaking and illustration as symbiotic processes, students will develop innovative approaches to narrative art by using experimental materials and papers to create printed components for their work. No prior experience in monotype is needed for this class. This course will include in-class tutorials on making monotypes, making pigments, paints and inks, making paper, translating three-dimensional objects to the page, and methods of combining printmaking with digital and traditional illustration processes. Assignments will consist of research, readings, and studio projects with a focus on how materiality can enhance narrative art.

Description:

This course examines the relationship between contemporary cinema and humanity's impact on the natural world. We will look at how cinema is reflecting and shaping human relations with our environment. How does contemporary film and media cinema help us discover and better understand the natural world? How do moving images allow us to imagine the landscape and to create alternate landscapes? What is the material and environmental impact of media production, distribution, and consumption? And in an age of climate crisis how does film represent and address that crisis? To address these questions, we'll examine a variety of genres and cinematic modes from blockbuster films like Mad Max Fury Road to eco-materialist experimental works, from environmental documentaries to science fiction.

Description:

In this course students will investigate a specific topic in interactive and social media arts analysis, such as digital narrative, gaming, locative media, digital poetry and literature, database aesthetics, hacktivism, digital intervention, net art, robotics, bioart, digital ecoart, virtual environments, augmented reality, and systems art. Readings, videos, participation in peer group and class discussion, as well as team presentations, will encourage and compliment individual student research.

Description:

This upper-level seminar explores the "colour consciousness" of moving images. How can engaging with histories and theories of screen colour help us think about visual culture and politics of media visuality? The course takes up this question through a range of historical case studies, from early film colour experimentation to the emergence of digital colour algorithms. Bringing together scholarship and film analysis, the course considers how colour has shaped the structure, meaning, and reception of moving images. The course is scheduled in a weekly four-hour block that includes time for a film screening. Seminar discussions will rely on completion of assigned readings and student-led presentations or prompts. Students will be submitting regular writing assignments throughout the term.

Description:

This elective explores the relationship between images and space, moving back and forth between the 2D world of photographs and the 3D world of objects. Students will experiment with installation techniques using photographic prints, projection, and/or video, and will examine the conceptual and formal possibilities of space, scale and sequencing in their work, both on and off-campus. This 3-credit course will incorporate readings and class discussion, critique, and the development of a final installation of work at the end of the term. Please note that all students will be expected to budget for making numerous prints, including large format prints (possibilities will be discussed in class).

Description:

In this course, students will expand their illustration and printmaking practices through a deep investigation of materiality. Working with monotype printmaking and illustration as symbiotic processes, students will develop innovative approaches to narrative art by using experimental materials and papers to create printed components for their work. No prior experience in monotype is needed for this class. This course will include in-class tutorials on making monotypes, making pigments, paints and inks, making paper, translating three-dimensional objects to the page, and methods of combining printmaking with digital and traditional illustration processes. Assignments will consist of research, readings, and studio projects with a focus on how materiality can enhance narrative art.

Description:

In this course, students will create personal content through etching and related print media techniques. Emphasis is placed on an exploration of contemporary ideas as students explore meanings, complexities, and applications of their subject matter. We will focus on the development of technical skills while also encouraging experimental exploration. Introductory techniques of line etching and aquatint will be reviewed, and more advanced techniques will open opportunities to explore colour, layering, photo processes, and other ways of working. Processes may be used in conjunction with drawing, digital prints and other media as desired. Through a range of technical demonstrations, in-class workshops and presentations, students will develop skills and conceptual directions for a series of works to be developed over the semester.

Description:

The dictionary entry for obscure marks dimness, cloudiness, darkness, blurriness, and duskiness in spaces and surroundings, and vagueness, unintelligibility, and indecipherability in words and meaning. Depending on these two lines this course is going to explore obscurity in all its possible extensions. What is looked at but not seen; what is read but not comprehended; what is desired but not known; what is listened but not heard will be some of the treads that we are going to delve into; and ambient sounds, infrared, dark matter, void, and objet a are some of the things we will trace. As for content, we will rely on a large scope of readings ranging from science to medicine, and from psychoanalysis to trans and queer literature. The aim of this course is to travel with obscurities and traverse that space with creative thinking and making. The one thing that is not needed for this course is prior knowledge in any of these areas as it is precisely a course that would like to reconnoitre what happens when knowledge is at bay.

Description:

In his study of Marguerite Duras's Lol V Stein novel, the famous French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan wrote, "the artist always precedes the analyst and that the analyst does not have to play the psychologist where the artist paves the way for him." In that spirit this course creates an encounter, a chance meeting between the two fields of art and psychoanalysis. Together, we will look into some of the concepts that are at the intersection of both fields such as trauma, sexuality, waste, love, and desire, and try to ask and answer questions such as: who is the subject of psychoanalysis? How does psychoanalysis view love? Where is the obscure object of desire to be sought? How is it possible to voice trauma? Circling around these question our inspiration will be from artists whose work have grown alongside psychoanalysis (eg. Louise Bourgeoise, Marcel Broodthaers, Leonora Carrington), artists who inspired psychoanalysts (eg. Claud Cahun, Hans Holbein, Gustave Courbet), and artists whose works stand at the edges of both fields (eg. Berlinde De Bruyckere).

Description:

In this course we will visit the past to gain insight on the present. What can our material culture tell us? Where can we find it? How do things get selected and saved and who does that work?

Description:

This intensive course builds off an initial personal garment study. A deconstructive assessment of existing garments will provide the basis to map out origin, material, construction and technical drawings. The second project builds from lessons in weeks 1-6 patterning and is designed to offer space for construction exploration. Alternate patterning, structural requirements, and internal considerations will be introduced for the creation of a textile object. Illustrated lectures, readings, videos and group discussions will be used to introduce topics throughout the semester.

Description:

This studio course will examine reciprocity in concept and practice as it relates to contemporary land based art. Through a critical engagement with the history of Land Art, a term coined by artist Robert Smithson in the 1960's, we will examine ways artists are currently subverting the very notion of site specificity and redefining the meaning of land from a place to be enacted upon to a space of ecological consciousness and Indigenous identity. Students will develop three distinct but related projects through assignment prompts which will be developed throughout the course with weekly workshops, one on one meetings, and critique. Community engagement, field research, historical and archival research, and land based raw material use will be discussed through the lens of Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Students will also have an opportunity to engage with the work of practicing land based artists through local exhibitions and programs. A course reader of essays, transcribed lectures, and other textual formats written by artists and cultural theorists will provide three assigned reading assignments to structure critical dialogue and written responses. The course reader provides much more than we will cover in the class.

Description:

In this course we will visit the past to gain insight on the present. What can our material culture tell us? Where can we find it? How do things get selected and saved and who does that work? This course introduces students to working with archival concepts and materials in the interest of enriching their creative work. Students will learn what archives are and how to conduct archives research. Students will handle actual materials held in archives and learn what the discussion is around contextual and ethical considerations for collections and archives.An emphasis will be placed on examining non-textual archival materials that range from printed matter to sound recordings, film, photographs, maps, objects, and born digital archived items held in local archives such as the City of Vancouver and Artist-Run Centres and Emily Carr University Archives.Students will develop studio projects based on, or in response to, archival material held in local archives as well as construct their own archive/collection using what they have learned about archives methodologies.

Description:

This studio course will examine reciprocity in concept and practice as it relates to contemporary land based art. Through a critical engagement with the history of Land Art, a term coined by artist Robert Smithson in the 1960's, we will examine ways artists are currently subverting the very notion of site specificity and redefining the meaning of land from a place to be enacted upon to a space of ecological consciousness and Indigenous identity. Students will develop three distinct but related projects through assignment prompts which will be developed throughout the course with weekly workshops, one on one meetings, and critique. Community engagement, field research, historical and archival research, and land based raw material use will be discussed through the lens of Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Students will also have an opportunity to engage with the work of practicing land based artists through local exhibitions and programs. A course reader of essays, transcribed lectures, and other textual formats written by artists and cultural theorists will provide three assigned reading assignments to structure critical dialogue and written responses. The course reader provides much more than we will cover in the class.

Description:

Starting with the premise that working in a context of multiple fluencies is an asset, this course explores the potential for the creation of texts through multiple languages and discourses. Students will engage in an array of creative writing experiments and linguistic play without having to conform to the strictures of grammar and standard English. Using processes of creative and speculative translation, students will investigate differing cultural and technical approaches to the writing process with the goal of developing their unique relationship to the material practice of writing. This course will be of interest to any students who want to engage with writing across different languages, whatever their levels of fluency.

Description:

Writing as an altered state. Writing is memory. Writing is mycological. Writing is psychedelic. Writing is olfactory. Writing is listening. Writing as body. Writing as questions. Writing as secret(ing).