Bodies, Water Bodies and Claybodies in Alliance: Exploring Gestures and Materials

Lectures will happen in CDS Seminar Room

This course is designed in a Seminar + Studio format. 

Gestures, as ‘exercised’ or ‘performed’ in various forms of resistance movements pertaining to civil rights over acess to land and water are a central theme. The presentation will focus on social and political resistances from South-East Asia. We will explore: (i) performativity of gestures and (ii) in relation to materials that are central for students practices.

Clay, which has been an anchor and witness in several geographies and forms, becomes one such material to begin hands-on exploration with. (The studio exercises will be done in the Keramik studio of the university and some will be done outdoors)

Questions that we will work through: 

- A presentation of artistic+activistic projects / movements from South East Asia will be done. Through these we will re-examine how Public spaces become spaces to exercise and thus reclaim civil rights. 

- How do Gestures and Materials reconfigure the nature of public infrastructures.

-What it means to perform/ exercise a right in public space - alone and together.

- Open discussion on how do we as artists navigate the (sometimes overwhelming) publicness and all consuming privateness of our making processes?

Teaching Methods:

Introductions (interactive games for introduction and to introduce key concepts of each researchers practice) 

Presentation/discussion and critique of the facilitators work, related to the subject and laying out of the premise of the course.

Inviting an external - an artist who has engaged with several forms of resistance

Case studies and (VTS) Visual Thinking Strategies session based on examples of artistic and activistic practices followed by an in-depth conversation on delicate nuances of how gestures and materials can transform resistance movements.

Discussion on the choice of material within each participants’ practice. Thinking of a material one might never have used. 

Creating visualisations of key questions/concepts from each researchers practice. This, creating individually and together, in terms of sessions.

Thinking through material in the studio - working with clay and Reflecting on the processes involved in visualizations.

The course will culminate in a presentation of either collaborative or individual works by students. 

 

Examination methods: 

- Final presentation and Participation would be important criteria for evaluation.

- Attendance: 

Seminars: 70% attendance is a requisite

Studio: 80% attendance is a requisite

The classes will be conducted in "CDS Seminar Room"