Art of the Public
Professor Peggy Diggs
Williams College (Spring 2005)
Course Description:
"New genre public art [is] visual art that uses both traditional and nontraditional media to communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues directly relevant to their lives [and] is based on engagement." So writes Suzanne Lacy, a long-time practitioner of such work. Engagement with members of the public is the premise on which this public art tutorial is founded: the hands-on work of the class will consist in exploring issues directly relevant to the lives of targeted audience-participants. We will develop art designed for a life outside of the gallery, art that emphasizes a process of engagement with issues. We will investigate the places where we live, our environs, by listening, looking, reading, interviewing. Students will learn how to elicit thoughts of local citizens and, through workshops and collaborative processes, evolve projects that will air those concerns in public settings and in public formats.
Requirements: exercises with public places, reflective writing on posed questions, interviews, project proposals, and projects.
Course Prerequisites: any 100-level course in ArtS or ArtH, and any 200-level course in the Art Department, and any course in Theater, Sociology, Political Science, Psychology, Women's and Gender Studies, or permission of instructor. Enrollment limit: 10. Preference given to Art majors.
Weekly Schedule
ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING: Discussion of syllabus, questions regarding course and logistics. Small groups to be described (2-3 people in each); these don’t begin until Week 2. Your work will be the focus of discussion in the smaller groups, with slides, field trips, occasional readings and discussion in full class meetings. We will try to keep full class meetings to 2.5 hours, 9:20am-11:50am. You will need to buy, forage or solicit all materials you decide to use for each project.
Resources other than those indicated in the syllabus will be made available as needed. I retain the right to respond to your evolving projects and to provide slides, videos, readings, etc., which might shed light on your work.
WEEK 1/ February 9
- 2/9/05 GROUP CLASS: Discussion of “publics” and ethics. Read article by Patricia Phillips, “Public Art; A Renewable Resource,” from Urban Futures: Critical Commentaries on Shaping the City, Ed. By Malcolm Miles and Tim Hall (Routledge: 2003). We’ll discuss. Community Conversations exercise.
WEEK 2/ February 16 • PROJECTS 1 AND 2 • SITE: See, and SITE: Intervention
- SMALL GROUPS: 1 Each tutorial group is to choose a public site which is not on college campus. Study it through recording everything you perceive through notes; visit the site at three different times of day so as to notice differences in sound, activity, etc. Spend a total of 45 minutes in these on-site studies. Do not go at the same time as one another. Report on your observations.
- 2/16/05 GROUP CLASS: 2 Each tutorial group is to make your public site more engaging than it currently is. Do something to that site that may invite people to want to be there. Options? We will visit these finished projects during class.
- After Group Class: Write 1-2 pages on Blackboard concerning the SITE: Intervention project results overall, and then compare two of the projects we saw. Then discuss how your own intervention may actually affect the use of, perception of, and public for this site.
WEEK 3/ February 23 • PROJECT 3 PLACE: Here
- SMALL GROUPS: Exercise on interviewing, listening, formulating questions. Read the article on Blackboard about story-telling: Telling and Listening in Public: Factors for Success, and prepare to discuss.
- 2/23 GROUP CLASS: We will visit Williamstown’s House of Local History (attached to the Town Library, opposite Field Park from the Williams Inn; http://www.milnelibrary.org/hlh.html; hours 10am-noon weekdays or by appointment; Curator, Nancy Burstein, phone: 458-2160, email: nancywb947@aol.com), and the College Archives in Stetson Hall (Sylvia Kennick Brown, College Archivist, hours: 10-12; 1-5 weekdays only). Some other resources for this project include:
- Sweetwood
- Proprietors’ Fields
- Harper Center
- No. Adams Hospital
- Williamstown Town Hall: employees, records, and Town Selectmen
- The Advocate (free local newspaper); The North Adams Transcript, and the Berkshire Eagle
Project: Through research of various kinds (local records, interviews, public articles, contact with reporters or community members, visits with elderly people with long memories…) pursue a story about the community (Northern Berkshire County) which may be of public interest. It must be something which happened, something which in some way relates to other people who live here, and something which happened at a particular site or place. Then find a way to make that story visible at the site where it happened. (This could be as short as a performance, or as long as permanent signage—provided permission is given!)
WEEK 4/ March 2 PLACE: Here
- SMALL GROUPS: Discuss your research to date. Keep in mind this takes longer than you think. And it should lead to directions you may not be planning on, so provide adequate time to do this. You should be done with research by the end of this week, so as to begin rough drafts of project ideas.
- 3/2 CLASS: Read “In Mothballs” and “Marking the Spot,” by Lucy Lippard from The Lure of the Local (The New Press: 1997). We’ll discuss these articles while looking at images by RepoHistory, Shimon Attie, Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock, John Ahearn, early Group Material, and Alfredo Jaar.
WEEK 5/ March 9 PLACE: Here
- SMALL GROUPS: Present 2-3 project ideas to one another. Prepare one for visual presentation to Wednesday’s class. See below.
- 3/9 CLASS: Meet in small groups to present readable visual drafts of your project idea to one another; provide questions and observations to help each other finalize project.
WEEK 6/ March 16 PLACE: Here
- SMALL GROUPS: Meet only if you have questions or need help. Prepare to show projects on Wednesday.
- 3/16 CLASS: See all projects.
SPRING BREAK, March 18-April 4
WEEK 7/ April 6 • PROJECT 4 ISSUES: Now
- SMALL GROUPS: Readings / discussion.
- 4/6 CLASS: Field trip to Northern Berkshire Community Coalition in North Adams to discuss overview of many local issues and endeavors underway.
Project: The Coalition is a group of local social service organizations who tackle different problems in the community in various ways. They meet once a month to discuss briefly what one another are currently working on so that they are more efficient at passing on information to clients and others needing direction. As a result, the NBCC has its fingers on the pulse of local social concerns. They will give us an overview of what the issues are in our part of the county and what local organizations are doing to deal with them. For this project you will need to choose an organization (or two, or perhaps a few individuals) which are tackling a similar problem. To be discussed more at length.
Then read Common Sense and Common Ground. This article by William Cleveland is a good primer in approaching a project as an artist aiming to work in the community. He is assuming your project will concern teaching or doing workshops under the auspices of an organization, and that your project will be a lengthy one. But take his recommendations to heart as general recommendations which could make your entry into this project much easier.
WEEK 8/ April 13 ISSUES: Now
- SMALL GROUPS: Make appointments for this week. Discuss process. Step 1: Pose 3-4 broad questions which leave room for unexpected information to come forward.
- 4/13 CLASS: Slides of examples of public art projects which may relate to your ideas so far.
WEEK 9/ April 20 ISSUES: Now
- SMALL GROUPS: Report on meetings; discuss next steps.
- 4/20 CLASS: TBA
WEEK 10/ April 27 ISSUES: Now
- SMALL GROUPS: TBA
- 4/27 CLASS: TBA [Note: This is a big project. Finished work may be seen either today, or at end of term, specific time to be determined.]
WEEK 11/ May 4 • PROJECT 5 PEOPLE: Work
- SMALL GROUPS: Read and discuss “CWT#3: Making City Water Tunnel #3” by Marty Pottenger, in The Citizen Artist: 20 Years of Art in the Public Arena, Ed. By Linda Frye Burnham and Steve Durland (Critical Press and the Gunk Foundation: 1998).
Project: This will be a quick performance project (definition to be discussed) to be done either individually or with one other person from the public art class. This is an outreach investigation where you speak with people about the physicality of their jobs (the objects they work or interact with, the substances they have to use, the motions they make during their day, the repeated gestures they may have to make, the clothing they have to wear, their use of and division of time, differences between busy and quiet times on the job, etc.) What jobs? Barbers, beauticians, housekeepers, dentists, shop keepers, food servers, grounds keepers, object makers, dog washers, gas station workers… the more physical, the more you’ll have to work with. How many people to talk with? How many different jobs? What aspect of their physical work interests you? Do you want to compare and contrast two different job types, or jumble up 12? To be discussed more at length.
- 5/4 CLASS: Field trip to begin project.
WEEK 12/ May 11 PEOPLE: Work
- SMALL GROUPS: Having met with at least 5 people about their jobs, demonstrate what physical information you now have. Discuss how this information could be performed.
- 5/11 CLASS: Group discussion/demonstration.
-
BLACKBOARD, after class: Write 1 page on another class member’s ideas from class. How have your own plans be affected by seeing everyone else’s research?
RDG PERIOD/ May 17, Tuesday Present your performance piece.
