In Queer Phenomenology, Sara Ahmed suggests that queerness involves a particular orientation toward the objects that appear and disappear around us. To queer objects is to engage in a “politics of disorientation,” unsettling normative ways of perceiving and using both bodies and things. This course examines the significance of everyday objects and how their design shapes our way of being in the world. Artists working in three dimensions have long turned to the ready-made to address the body, history, and relationality. Building on this impulse, the course explores how re-sculpting found objects generates new meanings. Students will experiment with objects beyond their intended functions, using them as raw material for new meanings, reordering social and spatial relations, activating a sculptural moment, and exploring how these processes can be acts of self-fashioning.

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.

How can resurrecting an image or object empower, debase, or contradict? This studio class critically examines these questions, exploring themes from the power dynamics and policing in cultural appropriation to the freedoms of ownership in image culture. We will investigate cloning and copying processes to understand how resurrected images or objects may change in value, be surveilled, and which qualities are retained or lost. In-class workshops and demonstrations will introduce students to techniques linked to the concepts of repetition and permutation, such as mold making, 3D printing, and laser printing. Readings and class discussions will provide a range of historical and contemporary perspectives on these issues. Classic texts by influential writers such as Jean Baudrillard on Simulacra and Simulation and Jacques Derrida on Hauntology will be examined alongside contemporary insights from writers like Simone Browne and Ken McLeod. Case studies, including Tupac's post-mortem appearance at the 2012 Coachella festival and the evolution of deepfakes and AI in daily life, will be considered. The works of artists such as Sondra Perry, Cecile B. Evans, Liz Magic Laser, Samson Young, and Harun Farocki will be explored to illuminate the understanding of reproduction, representation, and reality in the digital age.