"New genre public art [is] visual art that uses both traditional and nontraditional media to communicate and interact with a broad and diversified audience about issues directly relevant to their lives [and] is based on engagement." So writes Suzanne Lacy, a long-time practitioner of such work. Engagement with members of the public is the premise on which this public art tutorial is founded: the hands-on work of the class will consist in exploring issues directly relevant to the lives of our targeted audience-participants. We will develop art designed for a life outside of the gallery, art that emphasizes a process of engagement with issues. We will investigate the places where we live, our environs, listening, looking, reading, interviewing. Students will learn how to elicit concerns of local citizens and, through workshops on computer visual drafting and collaborative processes, evolve projects that will air those concerns in public settings and in public formats. Requirements: readings, exercises with public places, journal writing on posed questions, taped interviews, drafts of projects pursued with group, attendance at one public meeting of student's choice, final project and presentation. Prerequisites: any 100-level course in ArtS or ArtH, and any 200-level course in the Art Department, and any course in Theater, Sociology, Political Science, Psychology, Women's and Gender Studies, or permission of instructor. Enrollment limit: 10. Preference given to Art majors.

Hour: DIGGS