Jesse Colin Jackson
Art 251: Special Topics Seminar
Fall 2024
This graduate seminar is focused on community-building and creative opportunities at the Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve. Students from within and beyond* the Claire Trevor School of the Arts are invited to pursue co-creative projects framed by trans-disciplinary discourse. The course will culminate in a public-facing showcase event during Winter/Spring 2025.
Because we want to maximize working onsite—about 2.5 hours drive from UCI (near Joshua Tree)—the course will have a non-standard schedule.
We’ll be determining, creating, and deploying some site improvements. We’ll confirm what these will be during a first visit, create them during the quarter, and deploy them during subsequent visits, in anticipation of our Winter showcase.
We’ll also be determining, creating, and deploying some creative activities derived from your own practices, inflected by the high desert site and communities we’ve built across the quarter. These projects can be pursued individually or in groups. These could be installations, performances, short films, research-creation, or even happenings. Don’t consider yourself a visual artist? You’ll be encouraged to collaborate with some.
Arts at Burns Piñon is an ongoing collaboration between CTSA Research and Innovation and UCI Nature, with support from the Beall Center for Art + Technology Ecology.
* In Fall 2022, students from seven departments (Art, Chemistry, Dance, Drama, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Music, and Visual Students) in fours schools (Arts, Biological Sciences, Humanities, and Physical Sciences) enrolled in the course. This cohort will be invited to participate in the 2025 showcase event as well.