Course Details

This course explores current practices of socio-cultural, political-economic, environmental, gender and ethnic activism that engage aesthetic forms to expand participation, redefine the style of mobilization, and reconfigure the realm of the political. We will focus on how individual and collective visual and spatial strategies, including graffiti, street art, theater, film, performance and media, work to raise awareness about income inequality, unevenly distributed life chances, often gendered and geographic, as well as health and the environment, war, occupation and militarization. We will pay particular attention to how artistic practices and the ideas that inform them circulate locally and globally, adding to what Susan Buck-Morss has called the “mimetic” qualities and collective plurals of political movements that make “visible the horizons of the possible.” Our examples will be drawn from East Asia, Eastern Europe (Hungary in particular), Latin America, the Middle East and the U.S.. In Fall, 2027, we will be joined by local artists and art activists (in person and virtually) as well as have opportunity to participate in art and activist events at the Seattle Asian Art Museum and elsewhere.
Students in the “Art and Activism” course do final small group projects and write final individual reflection papers, both of which are ideal for the Honor’s portfolio. Feel free to reach out to me to see examples of projects done by Honor’s students in Fall, 2025!