XAED302 - Special Topics: Socially Engaged Museum Education

Course Description

Museum Education and Public Program Departments explore a wide range of opportunities — workshops, lectures, public events, camps, screenings, performances, and tours; both in person and online — with the goal of engaging the public in learning through connections to their exhibitions, collections, and local community concerns. In his book, Education for Socially Engaged Art, Pablo Helguera describes "Most artists who produce socially engaged works are interested in creating a kind of collective art that impacts the public sphere in a deep and meaningful way, not in creating a representation—like a theatrical play—of a social issue."  In this studio course you will examine the shift from "studio to situation" and the intersections of art, activism, community organizing, and ethnography in contemporary art. You will also practice the ways in which artists and designers work with Museum Education and Public Programs departments to develop and present projects either sited in the museum with community participation, or sited in the community with institutional support.  Through field research and collective making, you will develop, work-shop, implement, and evaluate each other's socially engaged projects with museum audiences and the community at-large in mind.

Note(s):

• Fulfills electives for the Art Education Certificate Program and open to all other students.