Related Courses

Three new courses to facilitate social engagement

As part of the year-long focus on Community Works: Artist as Social Agent, CIA has introduced three new elective courses designed by faculty to engage students in addressing social and environmental problems. All three courses offer students opportunities to collaborate with community members and create works of art and design that address those problems.

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Socially Engaged Art for Change I: Drawn to Care = Portraiture + Medicine

Supervised by a faculty member, this year-long, field-based practicum (1.5 cr. per semester) provides interested, qualified students from all majors an opportunity to engage as artists in residence at the Cleveland Clinic. Students will spend 2-4 hours per week on-site, drawing and/or painting portraits of patients and their caregivers, in traditional and/or digital media. Scheduling will be customized for each student. Equipment and some materials will be provided. Students will also meet periodically in seminar on campus, and maintain a reflection blog/portfolio. The end of the project year will include a culminating exhibit of all work produced in the Drawn to Care practicum. Designed to help students develop their social agency as professionals, while advancing their experience in the field of "social practice" in art, this practicum emphasizes practice and expansion of existing art, interpersonal, and project management skills. Open studio elective. Prerequisite: conversation with instructor. Instructor: Barbara Chira 

Socially Engaged Art for Change I: projectFIND = People + Shelter + Food + Mapping

Supervised by a faculty member, this year-long, field-based practicum (1.5 cr. per semester) provides interested, qualified students from all majors an opportunity to engage with classmates as artists “in residence" on the frontline, working with 17 organizations that assist the Cleveland homeless population by creating a guide for mapping the resources that are available to them. Students will spend 2-4 hours per week either in the field or in the studio, mapping available community resources and creating a resource/navigation guide specifically for homeless individuals and families. A key aspect of the project will include facilitating positive mutual exchange among all partnering organizations. Student schedules will be customized in concert with the instructor. Students will also meet periodically in seminar on campus, and maintain a reflection blog/portfolio. The final resource guide will be printed and distributed at the end of the project year, and all projectFIND components will also be included in a culminating exhibition. Open studio elective. Prerequisite: conversation with instructor. Instructor: Sai Sinbondit

Environment, Art and Engaged Practice

This field-based course expands the boundaries of the studio experience into the outdoors, through intensive investigative studies within the Cleveland Metroparks. Students will work collaboratively with one another, the instructor, and with consultation from Metroparks staff and other content experts, to identify and research critical environmental issues and/or aesthetics of nature, towards the realization of compelling visual work that will serve to engage and enlighten the public, with the ultimate aim of making positive change. The course will provide classroom and studio space on-site at the Metroparks, as well as at CIA. A very significant amount of class time will be spent in the field and at the satellite studio/classroom space. The class is concerned with exploration of aesthetic, sociocultural, political, and ecological issues through insightful and innovative use of the visual language. Students may choose to work in the media of their major, but are also free to explore other disciplines. Instructor: Kevin Kautenberger