PROJECT
Deconstructing a Monument
LEVEL
Foundation - Seniors
COURSE
Interdisciplinary, Fashion, Sculpture
INSTRUCTOR
Sandra Erbacher
OUTCOMES
Core Concepts/ Language
Making
Inquiry
Reflection
Synthesis
Community
MATERIALS/TOOLS
Project Dependent/ Open
RELEVANT ARTISTS
Doris Salcedo, Sam Durant, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Christian Boltanski
DOWNLOAD
Student work by Shania Zhu in response to statue of Lin Zexu, Chinatown, NYC, Parsons 2008
ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION:
Investigate a variety of memorials/monuments in NYC, select one that draws your attention, and formulate a response to it. The process should lead you from in-depth research via brainstorming, experimenting and prototyping to a final piece that offers a critical perspective and expands on existing conversation.
Some guiding questions:
What does the chosen monument commemorate and how? How does a monument relate to memory and time? Whose memory does it represent, and whose is excluded? How does the moment of its creation affect its message? How can we read it today? Is its contemporary reading different from its historical/ original meaning?
PROCESS:
Research: Answer initial guiding questions, take pictures, online/ library research
Experiments: create iterations based on research in at least 2 different media, i.e collage, maquette etc; propose a critique in the form of an intervention (i.e. a re-design, an addition, a distortion, deconstruction etc.).
Proposal: write proposal; include medium, process, intention, timeline, budget, artists researched (2 pages max).
Prototype: select from your experiments your final piece and bring to completion.
Documentation and final critiques/ presentation