This studio, Making Kin: Material Explorations in Friendship and Belonging, centers kinship as a method for making. For example, the notion of ‘friendship as entanglement’ lends itself to fiber-based artworks—of intertwined threads and interlocked fibers. Touchable objects made of silicone and hair would create an intimate haptic viewer experience. Archival and performative approaches to making are direct ways of exploring love and belonging. In this course, studio assignments encourage diverse approaches to kinship-making using conceptually-driven methods. Demonstrations are provided as needed to support students’ independent projects. Interpersonal relationships have within them certain embedded codes of behavior and privilege that inform how one is to think, feel, and relate. Those participating in forms of queer belonging often challenge the hegemony of marriage and the couple, and trouble the meaning of family, yet they do so outside the customs and laws that undergird kinship and affective relations. This studio begins with lesser-known forms of belonging with examples from the 19th century Oneida Community, Polyamory, Relationship Anarchy, and the concept of Expanded Affinities as a model of relating that means to redistribute care and extend our sense of belonging. Donna Haraway’s concept of the Cthulhu and s/f (string figures) provides terminology to think through interspecies and eco-relationships. bell hooks, Lauren Berlant, and Dean Spade offer texts both for and against love. Artistic examples include those from Carlos Motta, Neo Muyanga, Wu Tsang, Ana Hoffner, Every Ocean Hughes, and Sophie Calle.

This class explores sculpture’s capacities as anti-monumental, ephemeral, and performance-based using non-traditional materials and structural methods. These investigations are framed within the broader context of the role traditional sculpture has played in marking political and social power in the public sphere, as well as recent calls for monument removal. We visit sites around the city where sculptures have been removed, counter-narratives installed, and where hidden histories are embedded in seemingly innocuous works. Within this context, we use modes of construction such as tension, gravity, balance, time, and contingency. These forces are examined by creating artworks with non-traditional and ephemeral materials (rope, magnets, fog, and ice). We will create artworks that undergo change over time: degrading or solidifying. With these techniques, we delve into sculpture’s expanded possibilities. Related artists and writers include: Senga Nengudi, Gego, Ruth Asawa, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Eric N. Mack, Kellie Jones, Karen Barad, David Getsy, and Julietta Singh.