This Project based studio will focus on the intersection of food, design, and systems thinking. This Class looks through the lens of the multifaceted food system to develop scalable and actionable design outcomes that discover and respond to ruptures in the food system. Each iteration of this studio elective will address a particular theme as it pertains to food design. This year’s theme will be Food Waste. Outcomes will be comprised of prototypes and small scale design interventions.

This Project based studio will focus on ideas and work surrounding any and all of forms of Design and The Performing Arts. Students will be asked to seek and nurture collaborations with other students, faculty, and artists within the New School community or with other institutions. Collaborations locally and remotely are encouraged within both The Performing Arts and Design. Students can explore traditional or non traditional media as well as new and emerging digital and social media in their Collab projects. Once explored, outcomes, schedules, and final deliverables will be created and agreed upon by both the student(s) and faculty member. Projects can emerge from individuals or in small groups of students. Today there is a deep and sincere need to celebrate and embrace creation and human connections in all forms. We want to be able to connect and express ourselves emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. We will look at ways we can connect, create and share with others what we manifest toward all forms. Works and ideas will be supported to explore and express via art, music, film, poetry, objects and environments including mixed media and multiple platforms and outputs.

Like tricksters, daemons hover betwixt and between humans and other forces. With the advent of the computer in the 1970s, the word daemon was used to describe feedback, noise, interference, or, that which exceeds a logical system. Today’s “printer daemons” and “mailer daemons” lay dormant until summoned to handle requests for services such as print spooling and file transfers — yet they often seem to have a mind of their own. What are the social, spiritual, and technological functions of daemons? How does the invention of daemons preserve/challenge myths of progress, business as usual, and the status quo? How can daemons, tricksters, and other charismatic objects enrich how we design and interpret our world? What can we learn from these Others and how can they transform our worldview? In this course, students will work in groups to create 10 magazine-ready editorial, issue-driven photographs featuring a daemon. To produce these works, students will work with an external stakeholder or community partner whose needs will inspire the photos that will be created to help interrogate, promote, or advance a concept, ideal, professional goal.

In this multidisciplinary collab students will obtain dog fur from their local grooming center and learn the wet felting technique to create their own material. Using this material, they will be expected to design art pieces, products, or accessories. After developing their designs, students will be introduced to the fundamentals of visual concept creation, from brainstorming ideas for presenting their work to transforming those ideas into images. These hyper-local products will be captured photographically to add this project that is sourced, crafted and designed entirely in NYC to student portfolios. Please do not sign up for this course if you have an allergy to dogs.

In this elective, students will collaborate with a NYC public elementary school to develop a living archive that uplifts the school’s history of activism and social justice principles, enabling the school community to celebrate, learn from and build on this rich legacy. Students will learn how to engage critically with a school through a framework grounded in principles of social justice, reciprocity and non-extractive research skills. With this foundation, students in this class will support fifth graders in developing primary and secondary information gathering skills. Based on their findings, undergraduate and elementary students will partner to create resources that can be utilized by the school community, such as zines, a video mini-series, a website, or an on-site exhibition. Finally, we will define opportunities for the students to engage their school community in the content, and we will incorporate their work into a local archive.