Writing with Elena Gross (Tuesdays)

Artists in this seminar improve their artist statement, practice an artist talk, and build an archive of art writing text. How can we articulate a present and future self through examining the ephemera of the past? How can we re-animate the archival impulse as a pleasureful and generative exercise? What constitutes an archive in the first place? These are some of the questions that will guide this seminar. Examining a range of creative works including Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, photographic and video series by Lebohang Kganye, Cheryl Dunye + Zoe Leonard’s The Fae Richards Photo Archive, and more, this class will explore the utopian possibilities of meeting the authoritative with the speculative. Students will develop original writing that mines the personal, the political, and the imaginary.

In this class artists:

• Improve their artist statement and learn what makes a great artist statement.

• Show Informal presentations of original work in artist talks - students will respond to prompts and will develop new written work over the semester, with feedback and support from instructor and class members.

• Are assigned and suggested videos and readings (suggestions from students welcome/encouraged).

• Join student and instructor led group discussions.

• Will create and build informal archives of their semester (their notes, their doodles, PDFs, photos, artworks, ephemera, etc) to share with the class.