This Topics Studio course builds on the foundations of Core 1:3D by exploring materials, fabrication processes, and modes of making as integral parts of artistic practice. Working with found, upcycled, industrial, and traditional materials, students investigate how material choices and methods of construction shape the form and meaning of a work. Through hands-on experimentation, demonstrations, readings, and critiques, students expand their technical skills while developing a more independent approach to making. They are encouraged to work across materials, combine processes, and learn through experimentation, problem-solving, revision, and failure. The course considers materials not only for their physical properties but also for the histories, associations, systems of production, and environmental implications they may carry. Emphasis is placed on materiality, craft, and the relationship between how a work is made and what it communicates. As the course progresses, students take greater ownership of their decisions while considering scale, structure, surface, and context. The work of artists including Haegue Yang, Cildo Meireles, Nick Cave, Simone Leigh, El Anatsui, Mona Hatoum, Ishi Glinsky, and Mónica Mays will serve as points of reference throughout the course.

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This class explores the intersections of textile work in relation to the body. Students will engage with various forms of construction, including tapestries, inflatables, and the creation of soft objects. We will focus on the collision of traditional craftsmanship with global trajectories in contemporary art, viewed through the lens of somatic experience. Through hands-on workshops, students will develop technical skills such as natural/synthetic fabric dyeing, sewing, weaving, and collage. These methods will be implemented into the students’ sculptures and tactile works. Students will research artists who have pushed the boundaries of the medium—including Senga Nengudi, Hannah Woo, Sheila Pepe, and Ann Hamilton—to harness these influences in their own practice. The class combines artist presentations and short readings with prompt-driven projects that lead to independent work. Collectively, we will follow the lunar transits and create individual textile moon books, adding a page to it every week.