Public Performance Art and Actions

Public Performance Art and Actions provides an investigative environment in which participants rethink performance art and actions in New York City public space. Students create context-specific, public, performative works encouraging diverse forms of visual presentation from a series of prompts, which challenge the social spaces that we inhabit. Contemporary performance practices will be surveyed-from site-specific actions to virtual formats-using a variety of methods from traditional to new media, including installation, text, video, and other forms.

This public laboratory program brings together artists, scholars and community members to construct space for civic dialogue using performance and visual art. Participants will develop experimental models for an artistic practice that combine methods from the arts, activism and performance practice in order to cultivate innovative approaches to the construction of social spaces as a cultural landscape.

The residency will use the streets of the city as its studio. Artists and faculty will explore the diversity, history and stories that define communities, and how to incorporate these resources into the development of new works. Interventions may take the form of tours, tactical and site performances, temporal installations, video or sound projections, digital platforms, community-involved projects, peer-to-peer platforms, print or online publications, or a street event. Students will present final projects in the style of the NYC festival Art in Odd Places to an invited audience and the general public of passersby.

This is a unique opportunity to study with a faculty composed of leading artists, thinkers and social entrepreneurs. Through experiential workshops and one-on-one sessions, faculty will help artists to originate projects that reflect current social and political issues and guide collaborations with local businesses, art spaces and neighborhoods, as well as cultural and governmental partners.

In the experimental spirit of Public Performance Art and Actions, we welcome participants who are interested in moving from the traditional studio, gallery and theater spaces into the urban arena. Visual artists, writers, architects, designers, performance artists, urban planners and social activists are invited to apply.

Public Performance Art and Actions faculty: Ed Woodham (artist; founder and director, Art in Odd Places). Guest lecturers have included: Tom Finkelpearl (arts promoter), Todd Shalom (Elastic City), Risë Wilson (The Laundromat Project and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation), Radhika Subramaniam (Parsons The New School for Design), Martha Wilson (Franklin Furnace), Marlène Ramírez-Cancio (Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics), Micaela Martegani (More Art), Kameelah Jana Rasheed (artist, educator), Baseera Khan (artist) Esther Neff (artist), Sheryl Oring (artist, educator), Shaun Leonardo (artist, educator), Lisa Kim (Two Trees), Alicia Grullon (artist, activist), Tomashi Jackson (artist).
 

Note: A portfolio is required for review and acceptance to this program.

For further information or questions regarding SVA's Artist Residency Programs, email residency@sva.edu.

SVA’s Artist Residency programs are hosted by the Division of Continuing Education.

For additional courses and workshops please visit https://sva.edu/academics/continuing-education