Teaching

Case Studies in Curatorial Activism

Examines key formative exhibitions that have attempted to elevate the voices of historically silenced or omitted communities from master narratives of art. The course explores how these curatorial projects counter institutional erasure and have been enriched through a curatorial activism lens.

Issues in Contemporary Art: Migration

Examines the ways global artists engage the complexities of migration as a defining movement in our 21st century lives and explores its representation in contemporary art practices—unpacking the potential of art to speak to who and what gets left behind, what survives and what is mourned, in acts of migration.

The Imprisoned: Artists & Mass Incarceration in the US

Examines how artists use their practices to illuminate the day-to-day lives of those in prison as a way to call for much needed change in our 21st century prison culture, focusing on issues such as women as the fastest growing population in prison, youth caught in the school-to-prison pipeline, and aging and dying in prison, among others.

The Museum Object: Art & The Ethics of Care

Explores the history, practice, and implications of acquiring, researching, and displaying objects in museums. It takes a special focus on curatorial practices as sites for expressions of care—whether caretaking of collections, museum staff, visitors or community members.

The Passport in Contemporary Art

Focuses on how artists engage with the passport–an archive, document, symbol, object of migration, instrument of mobility and control–to reflect one’s freedom of movement or lack thereof. It further explores how artists engage with the archives of movement, mobility, and migration in their art practices.

Art & Social Change in the Americas

Examines how arts and cultural leaders are using the arts as tools for activism and social change to advance contemporary social justice and human rights issues in the Americas. Explores the innovative ways artists impact policy, promote global citizenship and serve as catalysts for social movements.

​Methods and Critiques in Arts Politics

Encourages students to develop generative frameworks in relationship to their practice with an emphasis on critical inquiry: What are the theoretical underpinnings of one’s practice? What are the spaces, modes and terms of engagement? What traditions and contexts does it draw upon or push against?

Caribbean Women and Creative Migrations

Explores the work of key Caribbean women artists who use their art practices to engage timely issues of displacement, dislocation, labor and the feminization of migration. Analyzes how their projects have troubled understandings of the region’s complexities, histories, and politics.

Women, Art & Activism in the 21st Century

Explores the dynamic role of women artists and cultural workers whose art tackles pressing gender, racial, economic justice and civil and human rights issues. It examines how women’s global arts activism has confronted political turmoil, encouraging greater civic participation by women and girls.

Contemporary Caribbean Art & The Politics of Visibility

Examines Caribbean Art against the background of generational movements of migration/diaspora. It addresses what goes into making Caribbean Art “visible,” facilitating rethinking of the canon along global lines, and breaking silences common to art practices about post-colonial spaces.