Honors News Archive

News in Brief

(Archived Article)

Curriculum Spotlight - Honors 210 A: Feminisms, Fictions, Fashions, and Fabrics

Dec 4, 2014

Co-facilitated by local artist/art instructor Julia Freeman and activist/English instructor Kate Boyd, this 5-credit course set out to explore the gendered and racialized cultural politics of cloth through multiple histories that have been recorded by the evidence of cloth, textile processes and materials choices.

Students approached reading fiction, creating physical artifacts, multi-media presentations, film and museum visits to carefully explore alternative feminist histories, labors and politics of the cloth we wear daily. Students of the class were also engaged in the opening of the current show by Ann Hamilton at The Henry Art Gallery and we asked instructor, Julia Freeman, for some of her favorite memories of that collaboration.

from Julia Freeman

The Common Sense exhibition - wall installation

The students were given recording books, pencils, a novel called the Peregrin and a writing board. As performers, they were to pick an item in the exhibition to read to for one hour and record different passages in the recording book. They were instructed by the artist Ann Hamiliton, to read to these items as if they were reading a bedtime story. I loved to see which items in the exhibition the students read to. One student read to an image of a dead crow, while another read to a mink coat from the the 1940's. Their voices all quietly molded together to form one as they read.

The Common Sense exhibition - students recording

As I walked around, I noticed most of the students were wrapped in wool blankets. The blankets were mentioned in the initial tutorial by the educational director at the Henry Museum, but they weren't given to the students. Most of the students got a blanket, and totally covered themselves with it as they read to their museum items. It seems they completely immersed themselves in the materials and the process in a very intuitive way. The idea of our class was to teach the physical and intellectual connection of materials and I feel like that moment really connected for them and for me as an instructor.


Learn more about the lessons that emerged from this fascinating course at the student exhibition on December 10, 2014, 3-4 pm at the School of Art - University of Washington Room 327/329.

THREADED PROTEST: TEXTILE DEMONSTRATIONS AND CONVERSATION

3-3:15-Introductions

3:15-3:45- Textile demonstrations by students


Food and drinks will be provided.