Contesting the visual/visible: the image as critical and creative method

A growing number of contemporary theorists and artists ask us to question our understanding of art history and the material conditions of image-making by rejecting the singular narrative presented to us through western modernity. As an exploratory course that bridges critical readings on the image with a wide array of complementary artistic practices, this course asks the following questions: How do we acknowledge the violences of colonial expansion, global imperialism, and the mid-Atlantic slave trade as formative not only to the history of art but its ongoing circulation today? What changes might these perspectives bring to how we look at and study images, how we create and distribute them, and even how we might approach technologies such as the camera? Relatedly, what types of artistic projects have emerged from such sites of inquiry, and how might we reformulate affinitive conceptions of art and creativity in conjunction with a critical-theoretical and/or radical-political mindset? This course is ideal for both students who are visual artists themselves and those interested in studying visual culture, and it also culminates in a final creative project that offers students the opportunity to apply the course material in ways meaningful to them.