Drawing, as a medium between process and realization, can be applied to recounting, mapping, processing, and problem-solving abstract concepts. In this course, we will ask what types of conversations are instigated when time is introduced to drawing. By incorporating tactile materials, the course will explore various innovative 2D animation techniques including lightning-sketch, pixilation, stop-action animation, cutout animation, assemblage animation, cell animation, collage animation, erasure animation, and still animation. The course combines analog and digital practices with an emphasis on process and experimentation. Pioneering and contemporary works of 2D animation will be viewed and discussed, including, Edward Muybridge, Walter Ruttmann, Alisi Telengut, Meriem Bennani, Tabaimo, Mohamadou Ndoye, Fatimah Tuggar, Tala Madani, Tommy Hartung, Robin Rhode, Amy Lockhart, Peter Burr, Brenna Murphy, William Kentridge, Kathleen Daniel, and Jacolby Satterwhite. Through thematic prompts leading up to a final project, this class welcomes work relevant to each student’s subject of interest. It will encourage spontaneity, risk-taking exploration, playfulness, and skill building, providing students with tools that can be applied to a range of platforms beyond classroom practices.

An edible weed can grow from a crack in the bricks. A single seed can grow into an oak that can live 400 years. As we experience unprecedented transformation around us, we will explore cultivating creative practices that consider the 7 generations principle. Are we being good ancestors? We will use sound, text, video, and drawing to deepen our sensorial connection to the world around us. How will these artifacts be understood by future generations? Will their world resemble ours? What does it mean to cultivate connectedness to a landscape that is transforming? What does it mean to record that for an unknown future? We will experiment with materials that change, grow, and propagate: bioplastics and mycelia; seedbombs and seedbanks. Can biomimicry be a catalyst for creative invention? We will examine and draw inspiration from relationships and systems of the natural world and weather data. We will discuss the Earthseed poems within Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” and their vision of inevitable change that can be shaped. Can individuals be the seeds who shape a changing world? Can artists? We will explore the work of Guadalupe Maravilla, Joiri Minaya, The Lenape Center, Fallen Fruit, and Kim Stanley Robinson, among others.