Course Schedule

TOPICS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Week/Date Topic & Class Activity Reading / Watching / Listening / Looking
(due for next week) 
What’s due today?
Week 1, 1/25/24
  • Getting to know you
  • Syllabus overview
  • Goals & guidelines for presenting work in class & giving feedback 
  • Lecture: Accessibility As Creative Practice – what does it mean? Intro to the Aesthetics of Access 
  • Lecture: Captions
  1. Read: Demystifying Disability : What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally, Emily Ladau (1991) Intro & Ch. 1 
    Plain language version
    NYU Library
  2. Read:Highlighting Disabled Experience through an Interdisciplinary and Socially Engaged Art Project,” Molly Joyce and Sandy Guttman in Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation
  3. Read: Alison O’Daniel’s text How To Caption 
  4. Set up your process blog
  5. Sign up to lead a Creative Practice workshop (link to google sheet)
nothing!
Week 2, 2/1/24
  1. Read: Getting In Touch with Images , Chancey Fleet
  2. Read: Life: A Tactile Comic, by Philipp Meyer (2013) 
Field Trip!
Week 3, 2/8/24
  • Student Presentations: Assignments #1 & 2
  • Lecture: Spandita Sarmah
  • Lecture:  Plain Language Writing 
  1. Watch:  After… After… Access, Jordan Lord
  2. Watch: A Recipe for Disaster , Carolyn Lazard
Assignment #1: Captions

Assignment #2: Lo-Fi or Hi-Fi Tactile Graphics 

Week 4, 2/15/24
  • Student Presentations: Assignments #2 & #3
  • Lecture: Hi-Fi Tactile Graphics with Yuhua (Coco) Cao
  • Lecture: Audio Description 
  1. Read: Disability as Method: Interventions in the Habitus of Ableism through Media-Creation, Arseli Dokumaci
  2. Watch: “Disability as a Method of Creative Practice: Audio Description as Blind Intervention”, a research-creation video by Arseli Dokumaci (2018)
  3. Phyllis Baldino, Absence is Present: Dead Nature in the Dark (2010) https://misreading.eai.org/
Assignment #3: Captions of Tactile Graphics
Week 5, 2/22/24
  • Student Presentations: Assignment #4
  • Creative Audio Description & Dance
  1. Read: A New Model for Access in the Museum,
      • Reading response in your blog!
        • A brief summary – what was it about?
        • One takeaway – a professional insight you draw from the reading, and that you think will be useful to keep in mind in the near or distant future
        • Connection to a real-world example – this could be something you thought of while reading, something that is similar that reminds you of something in the field, a connection to another reading/discussion from class
        • A burning question that remains with you after reading
Assignment #4 Audio Descriptions
Week 6, 2/29/24
  • Student Presentations: Assignment #5
  • Lecture: Touch Objects
  • Creative Practice Workshops # 1 & 2
  1. Read:Understanding Accessible Interpretation through Touch Object Practices in Museums” Race, et al. 
  2. Lenora Rosenfield, Relief (2018)
  3. “Co-designing Access: A New Approach to Cultures of Inclusion in Museums and Galleries”, Ch. 14 in Curating Access: Disability Art, Activism and Creative Accommodation, Amanda Cachia, ed. (library link here)
Assignment #5: Audio Descriptions of Captions 
Week 7, 3/7/24  

 

  1. The Art of Touch: Lending a Hand to the Sighted Majority, Georgina Kleege
Assignment #6 or 7: Touch Object Prototypes
Week 8, 3/14/24
  • Student Presentations: Assignment #6 & #7
  • Guest Lecture: Annie Leist, MOMA 
  • Creative Practice Workshop #4
  1. Read: Audio Description: Art or Access?
Assignment #7: Touch Objects of Audio Descriptions
Week 9, 3/21/24 SPRING BREAK  SPRING BREAK  SPRING BREAK 
Week 10, 3/28/24
  • Guest Visitor:  Multimodal Art Installation – Cathy Cook 
  • Getting started on Final Show Design
  1. Read “Against Access,” John Lee Clark
    Question: How do Lee’s thoughts about transgression, translation & transformation relate to our work in this class?
  2. Be sure to sign up to sit in on one of ArtShare’s workshops, in preparation for our class on 4/4 

 

 

Midterm Assignment
Week 11, 4/4/24  

  • Guest visitors: HeartShare
  1. Read: Accessibility in the Arts: A Promise and A Practice, Carolyn Lazard
Final Project Proposal
Week 12, 4/11/24
  • Creative Practice Workshop #5 & 6: Joanne & Xinran
  • Final Project Roundtable – prototypes, determine access needs
  • Reading Discussion 
  1. Read: Twenty Questions for Disability Justice Art Dreaming: A Winter Solstice Present,” in The Future Is Disabled, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Final Project Outline / Sketches
Week 13, 4/18/24  

  • Creative Practice Workshop #7 & 8: Angie & Sophie Ana
  • Final Show Design Workshop
  1. Read: Blind Photographers: Vision, Accessibility, and Empowerment in the Museum
Final Project Production 1
Week 14, 4/25/24 FINAL PROJECTS DUE IMPORTANT DATES:

  • Friday, April 26th Install
  • Monday April 29 Show Opens
Final Project Production 2 / Installation & Display
Week 15, 5/2/24 Activity: Gallery documentation 
  • Friday May 3 Party! Invite everybody!