A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Portrait of a person smiling

Allison Yasukawa

Lecturer

Bio

Allison Yasukawa (she/her) is an interdisciplinary maker and deep language nerd. She holds an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in TESOL/Applied Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. As both an artist and educator, she is invested in what communication scholar Joanne Gilbert calls "heckling the status quo.” In her studio practice, Allison investigates asymmetries of power in language and interaction and examines crossings of various kinds, from the personal to the global. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at spaces including the American University Museum (Washington D.C.), High Desert Test Sites (Joshua Tree, CA), and Dak'Art OFF (Saint-Louis, Senegal). Allison has developed arts-based English language programs and taught at the the California Institute of the Arts, California College of the Arts, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and ArtCenter College of Design. She has presented workshops internationally on artmaking and languagemaking in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast; and Changsha, China and is working on a book about language and/as creative practice.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers. In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership. Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1294

Credits

3

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers. In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership. Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1698

Credits

3

Description

This is the first of two English language fluency courses for students who do not speak English as their first language. Students improve their academic English skills by reading and responding to art appreciation and art history texts. Texts are analyzed for formal as well as contextual information. Students learn how to integrate their own observations and knowledge with information gained from reading and lecture. Students also build competence and confidence in college-level writing. Topics include formal analyses and/or critical responses to works of art. Presentations and class discussions also give students practice communicating their knowledge through speaking.

Class Number

1416

Credits

3