The YEAR ONE project asks you to imagine that you begin a new timeline for yourself starting now: whenever you begin, that’s your YEAR ONE.
To participate in YEAR ONE, the question you ask yourself is, essentially, this: if you came to the conclusion that you couldn’t rely on currently existing systems and institutions to teach you the skills you need for a range of potential ecological, sociocultural, political and economic futures, what would the list of skills you’d prioritize look like? How different from what you’re focusing on now is this list, and why?
Furthermore, we ask what needs to change – in ourselves, in our conversations, in our bodies, in our local and regional places, in our digital spaces, in our relationship to resources, in the way we operate socially, as consumers, with the land, and then, yes, with institutions – to get us to a place where these things move out of a place of abstraction and into our daily habits, actions, choices, and relationships.
This is a practice in acceptance and humility – we’re all humans working and/or going to school in the US late capitalism, and accepting how futile these questions often feel is something we consider directly, as part of our problem to solve. We also accept that we are in many cases entirely unskilled at things that feel critical, and we take a deep breath together and start here, where we are, with whatever skills we have. We bring our own experiences and skillsets to the table, we bring our questions, we bring our fear, and we sit together to grapple with starting this process. It’s also a hands-on process of practical learning, in the areas selected for focus by our collective: construction? microagriculture? herbalism? medic training? Let’s do it.
YEAR ONE is also an invitation to reach out into our larger communities (both shared and personal) and see how and where we ask these questions with and in a range of publics: by engaging in Social Practice as a Public Action. We do not operate in a vacuum, and we are interested in what it means to form and ask our questions as seeds for interdependent futures. What does it mean to use the framework of public, social activation, performance, design, and/or other art practices to open this work up to others? Over the term, students are invited to engage in and develop Social Practice public projects in conjunction with the PUBLICATION and PUBLIC ACTION and YEAR ONE: HUB projects on campus and beyond, as these initiatives continue to build and operate in collaboration with a range of global spaces and partner organizations.
Learning Outcomes:
- Social practice research, project design and implementation / exposure to precedent work and practitioners, familiarity with the planning and design of public-facing interventions and actions
- Collective autonomy as a learning principle, peer training and co-learning across collectively determined skill areas and disciplines; exposure to and consideration of self-directed education styles across age groups; practice in pedagogy and learning design for different audiences
- Collective practice in non-hierarchical space and system operation and community agreement building
- Collective practice around research, publication and public resource development across disciplines as a solidarity strategy for changemaking within and beyond institutions.
- Somatic and other embodied modalities for supporting system change work without burnout
Delivery Method: Hybrid
Prerequisites: Faculty Permission Needed - contact: elaemoss@bennington.edu.
Course Level: 4000-level
Credits: 4
F 2:10PM - 5:50PM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 15
Course Frequency: One time only
Categories: 4000 , Advancement of Public Action , All courses , Cancelled Courses , Four Credit , Hybrid , Updates
Tags: CAPA , climate change , contemporary artists , creative , environment , hands-on laboratory , multidisciplinary , play , public action , social issues , social practice , Somatic Practices , sustainability