VIS1020H S
Instructor: Charles Stankievech
Meeting Section: L0101
Wednesday, 9:00AM - 12:00PM

With close attention to the breath, this graduate seminar investigates the complexities of breathing through art, philosophy, geopolitical theory and the design of closed worlds and controlled environments. The current sensitivity to the air we breathe prompts this seminar, including the air of a respiratory pandemic, racial injustice (“I can’t breathe”), forest fires, carbon emissions and uncertain futures. The breath, on the one hand, binds all human experience making us interdependent, and on the other hand, proves that inequality and difference exists in our varied access to breathable air. This course is shaped around a developing exhibition and book titled BREATHLESS (The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery) – an architectural and curatorial research project that provides the critical content for this course with a set of carefully selected historical and contemporary references. Students will have the unique behind the scenes opportunity to engage with BREATHLESS while expanding their own interests on the topic. The course is taught in parallel with Prof. Ala Roushan, as part of the Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Histories program, OCADU, sharing international guests and a jointly run symposium at the Power Plant at the end of the semester combining work from both university students.