This Fall, I’m coordinating an Art 251 (Special Topics Seminar) focused on community-building and creative opportunities at the Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve.
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This course is by application, and will be capped at around ten people. The information below will help you decide if you want to participate.
Because we want to maximize working onsite, which is about 2.5 hours drive from UCI (near Joshua Tree), the course will have a non-standard schedule. Generally available for these dates? Great. What else do you need to know?
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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.
We’ll be determining, creating, and deploying some site improvements. We’ll confirm what these will be during the first visit, create them during the quarter, and deploy them during subsequent visits, in anticipation of our 2025 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.
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I’m hoping to enroll around five Art MFA students, three students from other CTSA graduate programs; and two students from other UCI graduate programs. If there are more than ten applicants, I’ll make final selections based on balancing the disciplines and diversities of the group.
Concerned about costs? Don’t be. All travel and site improvement expenses will be covered. Accommodation will be provided onsite. I may also be able to provide modest funding for your creative projects.
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.
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Ready to apply? Write a short email to j.c.jackson@uci.edu confirming your availability and describing why this course will enhance your creative or scholarly practice.
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Jesse Colin Jackson (he, him, or they, them)
Professor, Electronic Art and Design, Department of Art
Associate Dean, Research and Innovation, Claire Trevor School of the Arts
Executive Director, Beall Center for Art + Technology
University of California, Irvine (on Acjachemen and Tongva territories)