Winter 2014 classes have begun for Professor Judith Baca’s Chicano Studies and World Arts and Culture Classes.

Beyond the Mexican Mural Winter 2014

Students attending the Winter 2014 Beyond the Mexican Mural studio class will continue to expand upon the theories and histories they learned in their fall semester course work. Professor Baca’s Beyond the Mexican Mural classroom exercises and workshops encourage students to find their inner creativity and shared histories. The following exercise was conducted on the second week of class. By visually representing the common struggles and memorable events in their lives, the students were able to create groups based on common themes. These common themes such as Art, Identity, Gender, etc, were then presented back to the class in uniquely engaging and creative ways formulated by the students. Future course work will involve artistic projects located both in the digital mural lab and off site, as in the case of the “Emancipation Portrait Project” at the Judy Baca Arts Academy.

New Social Media and Activist Art

Advanced telecommunications and the worldwide expansion of popular media usage have created an emerging “global media culture.” Simultaneously, accessibility and an expanding capacity for non-artists to generate films, graphic designs, and artworks which can be communicated widely and instantly has also created a cross-pollination of national and international cultural traditions. A capacity now exists for a local issue to become viral and global in very short period of time fueling a new international activism through the internet.

This class focuses on hands-on learning and production experience as essential to a full understanding of modern media. We encourage students to apply their theoretical knowledge by helping to build usable products in the lab that support their graduate research interests, then to evaluate and challenge these tangible projects through critical inquiry.

This class promotes a pragmatic style of humanistic and social scientific scholarship that prepares students to think critically and productively about media form, content, and context while learning to effectively use social media.