EGMT 1510: Taking Place

Instructor: 
Where do we find art? Where does art find us? To what kinds of real and imagined places does art take us? How does it make us think and feel? Is your impression of a new place affected by the art you find there? Where have you encountered art at UVA and in Charlottesville? In this course, we will investigate the relationship between people, places, and art. We will encounter works of visual art that are in place (sculpture and architecture) as well as those that take place in a particular location (photography, film). These works are all located at UVA or in Charlottesville, but some of them take place elsewhere. They were made by people in a variety of different cultures, social situations, and historical moments. We will explore the locations in which these works are found or take place, the visual forms the artists have chosen, and the debates, conversations and controversies they have provoked. We will also reflect on the influence of digital connectivity on the experience and creation of visual art and our access to it. By critically engaging with a variety of works of art, as well as inhabiting and reflecting on your own creative practice as a “maker”, you will develop a familiarity with a few of the many ways that art and aesthetic experience can locate and mediate humans’ understanding of their place in the world and their experience of it.