Untidy Objects

Undergraduate / Graduate

In this experimental course, students will use the lens of "untidy objects" to unravel the relationship between self and other, self and world. The concepts we normally use to think tend to take for granted, on the one hand, tidy objects, and on the other hand, tidy subjects coming to know tidy objects. We will undertake to challenge distinctions between subject and object through a multi-faceted set of sculptural and horticultural practices that bring us into close contact with plants and trees.The aspirations of this project are to question the conceptual ground from which we think about environmental justice and politics with an emphasis on practices of proximity to living others. Through readings, guest speakers, discussions, and practicum, this course and project provide an opportunity to re-habituate ourselves and lean differently into the world, to perceive, conceptualize, and represent living processes in ways that are oblique to common-sense.