Xi Li

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.

This course is an introduction to the materials, methods, and concepts of sculpture. We will investigate making in relation to material, time and space. We will consider aspects of sculpture such as meaning, scale, process, social engagement, ephemera and site; and explore the formal properties and expressive potential of materials including mold making and casting, wood, metal and experimental media. We will combine the use of materials and methods with ideas that reflect the history of contemporary sculpture. Demonstrations and authorizations will provide students with experience and technical proficiency in sculptural production while readings and slide lectures venture into the critical discourses of sculpture.

Over the course of each six-week summer residency period, all students in the Low- Res MFA program engage with a series of world renowned artists and scholars to expand our collective conceptual frameworks and discourses. Invited speakers participate in our Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Series. They deliver a public lecture open to the entire SAIC and Chicago community and the general public, and then participate in a Colloquium the next day exclusively for Low-Res MFA students. Each Colloquium takes place with the artist present, and is a space where the artist¿s work and concepts (direct or adjacent) are discussed, questions are raised, and topics are debated. Colloquium asks for consensus, but rather a dynamic and in depth discursive exploration of ideas. This form allows for a multiplicity of voices to build on concepts through questioning, contributing, challenging, and listening to each other. The colloquium is considered a Gift anchored with the presence of the visiting artist. This Gift is generated by enacting full attention to the concepts present in the artist or scholar¿s work. In the spirit of Lewis Hyde, the Gift is an exchange which generates or propagates further attention and exchange in culture. Thus, the Colloquium is a Gift meant to propagate further exchange in the world, as artists and citizens.

This third-year professional practices course looks beyond the MFA to critically examine questions of 'professionalization' while preparing students to represent themselves and their work across various professional contexts. Together, we will workshop practical skills - such as how to write an artist statement and project proposal - and will participate in a mock grant panel exercise. At the same time, we will delve into theoretical readings and art historical precedents that problematize concepts of professionalism and success. Through this dialectical approach, students will explore different historical and contemporary frameworks for creating a sustainable professional life after graduation - as well as the role that the expanded networks of community can play.