Department of Art and Art Professions

Visionary Studio - Art Education

High School

Saturday Art Workshop

**The Fall 2012 Application Deadline has been extended to Tuesday, October 2.**

Visionary Studio: Saturday Art Workshop is a 9-week program that combines the excitement of creating art with issues in social justice. Saturday mornings, from 10am-12pm, teens research one of four significant social themes (such as imagining the human body, street art, power & the symbol of the fist, and the water crisis) and discover a rich array of innovative, multidisciplinary approaches through which they can visually express their ideas. Together, students and teachers consider ways in which artists can and do influence society, and experiment with techniques that include drawing, painting, printmaking, video, photography, 3-dimensional media, and installation. These workshops challenge students to think outside of traditional artistic media and explore how artistic boundaries and influence can be stretched to include what has historically been excluded. As part of the program students participate in a final exhibition inviting a wide audience of parents, friends, teachers, and NYU faculty, to see their work.

Curriculum Archive
Fall 2010
Fall 2011

High School students do not need a portfolio to apply to the Saturday Art Workshop - classes are free-of-charge, and open to students with all levels of art experience!

Fall 2012 Visionary Studio: Saturday Art Workshop Curriculum

THEMES:

Music, Pressure, Urban Landscape/Gentrification, Transformation

DESCRIPTIONS:

Soundscapes (focus on digital tools, sound recording)
From the sounds of the urban city to the music that plays on our headphones - how are we defined by the sounds and music around us? Artists today often combine visual and auditory forms in their work. From artists who work with found and recorded sound to artists who integrate music and auditory elements into installations, performance, and sculpture, increasingly the boundaries between visual and sound art are blending. This class will explore found sounds, produced sounds, and homemade sounds to find connections between who we are and what we hear and listen to. Students will explore a wide range of ways to collect, re-mix, and merge sounds and visual imagery using digital and analog tools.

Under Pressure
From the financial, to the social, to the political, we all feel and exert pressure in different ways. The need to deal with issues of social conformity and political pressure both relate to similar societal impulses. What are different forms of pressure that exist in different contexts - for instance in home, school, or society? How does pressure affect the way we interact and function with friends and family members, in our neighborhoods and communities? Does pressure exert control over us or can we control pressure? Artists have looked at the idea of pressure from many different vantage points - from artists who feel pressure to conform to government/societal expectations to artists who look at the current economic crisis from a global perspective. In this class students will explore the theme of pressure from various perspectives in order to create works of art in a variety of media.

The Changing City (Urban Landscape/Gentrification)
Art, artists and the art world play a role in changing city neighborhoods. Although often part of the process of gentrification that changes poor neighborhoods into more wealthy areas, artists have also been critical of this process and played a role in drawing public attention to it. In this class, students will investigate the history and politics that have defined city neighborhoods and propose their own visions for urban public spaces and neighborhood transformations. Doing their own historical and contemporary research, students will also be introduced a wide range of artists who have looked at issues of gentrification and neighborhood evolution. Why do neighborhoods look different from one to the other? Who gets to live where and why? How do residents, business owners, and visitors all shape the way neighborhoods and the city overall looks, feels, and sounds? This class will look specifically at the urban environment, but through the lens of gentrification.

Transformed
We all change daily. Change happens in our body as cells regenerate, when we meet new people and have new experiences, when we wear different clothes or put on makeup. In turn, individuals have the power to transform the spaces and situations around them. This class will explore how individuals cannot only transform themselves, but influence broader social issues and concerns. What is the power of taking on different roles and how can these new roles enable individuals to change the world around them? Many artists have explored the themes of identity and transformation as a form of social activism. These artists often use alter egos or new personas to influence the world around them and address specific concerns in ways that perhaps they could not have done without their transformation. What forms, structures, and aesthetic strategies are contemporary artists using to represent transformation in our self, society, and world? This class will explore the theme of transformation as a means of personal and social agency.

Fall 2012 Schedule:

This program is a 9-Saturday commitment,  October-December 2012 on the following dates:

10/13, 10/20, 10/27, 11/3, 11/10, 11/17, 12/1, 12/8, 12/15, 12/16 (Final Exhibition& Party)

 Note: No class Saturday, November 24th for Thanksgiving Holiday weekend.

Exhibition Details:

Application procedure:

The application deadline has been extended to Tuesday, October 2.
Your application must be received by this date.

Apply Online! 
If you use this online application, you do not need to send anything else.

(If it's not possible for you to Apply Online, contact sam.englander@nyu.edu /516.410.0958 for alternate instructions.)
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You will be emailed with a confirmation of your acceptance and workshop choice, as well as directions and information about the first day.

For additional information:

Sam Englander, Program Coordinator

sam.englander@nyu.edu