History & Theory of Socially Engaged Art: Fall 2025
Course Numbers: ARTS 777 + EES 79903 + IDOutsS 81660-01
Schedule: Mondays 2:00 – 4:30 PM
Location: CUNY Graduate Center Room 6417
Instructor: Dr. Gregory Sholette
Email: gsholetteSTUDIO@gmail.com
Guest Co-Instructor: Tom Finkelpearl: SPCUNY Teaching Scholar-in-Residence
Course Description
An increasing number of artists, curators, and critics have recently turned their energies toward participatory socially engaged art making. This seminar surveys, critiques and historicizes the theory and practice of social practice art as well as activist, interventionist, public, participatory and community-based art operating within and across fields such as performance, urban studies, environmental science and other socially engaged disciplines.
Through lectures, readings, discussions and student research presentations we will position socially-engaged visual culture and the shifting role of the artist within historical, ideological, and critical frameworks. Guest speakers and offsite visits will be included when available.
Weekly Schedule
September 8 (Monday) – Course Introduction – Week 1
- Introductions and seminar overview
- Discussion of student projects and research interests
- Course content planning based on cohort needs
- 3PM presentation by Ou Ning. See reading.
Ou Ning is the initiator and practitioner of Bishan Project, a social experiment in a Chinese village during 2011-2016. Click for More.
Reading: Ou Ning “Utopia in Practice.” PDF
September 15 (Monday) – Week 2
Topic: What Is Your Practice About ?
Reading: Tom Finkelpearl, Introduction to the book: What We Made.
Activities:
1.) Class exchanges information about their research and creative work.
2.) Tom presents genealogy of socially engaged and cooperative art practices.
September 22 (Monday) – NO CLASS
September 29 (Monday) – Week 5
Topic: Sholette: 2025 Introduction to Dark Matter (2010) translations
Readings:
Additional Reading: Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (2010)
Related:
Which Art Collective Do You Belong To Quiz
October 6 (Monday) – Week 6
2- 3 A round-table discussion about participant’s practice
3- 4:15 Presentation by Dr. Raquel Ermida guest lecturer from Portugal
Reading: A Letter from Portugal: Counter-Memories from Misbehaving Women in Times of Rising Fascism
A Letter from Portugal is a lecture-performance that takes the form of a letter written to a new generation of artists and activists. It is based on research I co-authored with Bruno Marques and published in Transnational Visual Activism for Women’s Reproductive Rights. My Body, My Choice (Routledge, 2024).
At its core is the feminist artist collective ZOiNA, founded in Porto in 1999 by Ana Medeira, Carla Cruz, Catarina Carneiro de Sousa, and Isabel Carvalho. Through their fanzine Rata [Pussy] and projects such as Zona Lúdica [Play Zone], they reclaimed women’s bodies as sites of agency and resistance, challenging Catholic conservatism and the authoritarian legacies that persisted after Portugal’s dictatorship. Their visual guerrilla strategies transformed feminist theory into collages, slogans, and participatory artworks that created powerful counter-memories of sexuality, reproductive rights, and collective freedom.
But this is not just a story of the past. The rights gained by ZOiNA’s generation — access to reproductive healthcare, contraception, and abortion — are once again fragile, threatened by the rise of the far right in Portugal and across the globe. Addressed to students of social practice, this session is both a reflection and a call: to believe in the disruptive power of art, to misbehave, and to imagine feminist futures against authoritarian regressions.
Dr. Raquel Ermida, University of Portugal, Lisboa, Portugal
Readings: Ermida: Four Heads One “Pussy”
October 13 (Monday) – NO CLASS
College Closed
October 14 (Tuesday) – SPECIAL SESSION – Week 7
Classes follow Monday schedule Time: 2:00 – 4:00PM
Part One: The Making of Corona Plaza, special guest Maria Canela
Please watch: “The Making of Corona Plaza” (video)
We will be joined in conversation by Maria Canela who is interviewed in the film. She brings much to the table, including having been a community resident in Corona at the time the plaza was being designed and constructed, as well as being an active participant at Immigrant Movement International, a long-term art project in Corona.
Part Two: Chloe Bass (on Zoom)
Please read: “Those New Announcements in the Subway? They’re Art.”
There will be a virtual visit with Chloe Bass to talk about her practice in part two, focusing on her public art and particularly her recent commission in NYC’s subway system. Chloe, as you know, is co-director with Greg of SP CUNY. Assignment: Submit a question either about the film or about Chloe’s practice. Please post your questions as usual. And pease attend in person, but if you can not, then please let us know, and you will be able to attend via zoom (see your email for link).
October 20 (Monday) – NO CLASS TODAY – FRIDAY MAKEUP CLASS OCT 24
October 24 (Friday) – SPECIAL SESSION – Week 8
Topic: A visit to the Storefront for Art and Architecture
97 Kenmare Street in Downtown Manhattan
Visit: Território vivo by Sertão Negro and Public Address at Lt. Petrosino Square
Ww will be joined by Alex Strada, Public Artist in Residence with the NYC Department of Homeless Services and with special thanks to Storefront Associate Curator Jessica Kwok.
October 27 (Monday) – Week 9
Topic: Laura Nova Guest Speaker
* Location: The Clemente 107 Suffolk Street *
Laura Nova is an artist, educator and activist who lives and works on New York’s Lower East Side, creating festive, absurdist spectacles that unite generations and diverse communities. The first Public Artist in Residence to be embedded in New York City’s Department for the Aging, Nova brings expertise and empathy to her projects and actions, designing each element to enhance social wellness and decrease social isolation. Working in festivals, public monuments, and the city street, Nova delivers spiels to homebound New Yorkers, organizes an older adult cheerleading squad and designs crafting kits, guides, and costumes that help nurture emerging activists of all ages. Nova received a B.F.A. and B.A. from Cornell University and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently designing and teaching in the CareLab at The New School and an Urban Field Station Collaborative Arts fellow advocating for the care and longevity of humans and trees.
Please Review these links and Generate Questions for Laura as usual:
Care as Kindship, The Kinship with Trees and Forests: How to cultivate reciprocal relationships with trees and forests, Laura Nova, The Nature of Cities, 16 July 2025. | ExcerptHow can artists nurture relations of care between people and trees throughout the life course? What difference do attention, play, and ceremony make in cultivating these relations?
https://www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/2025/07/16/the-kinship-with-trees-and-forests-how-to-cultivate-reciprocal-relationships-with-trees-and-forests/
Laura Nova: Creating Art Across Generations, ALL Arts, The WNET Group, PBS Channel 13, aired and streaming since December 13, 2023.
Laura Nova is the first artist in residence for New York City’s Department of Aging. In her groundbreaking work, the multimedia artist celebrates intergenerational collaboration, while amplifying the issues of the day, including immigration, gentrification, aging and loneliness.
https://www.allarts.org/programs/all-arts-documentary-selects/laura-nova-creating-art-across-generations-gnitq2/
Public Artist Laura Nova, Traven Rice, The Lo-Down Culture Cast, June 11, 2025.
Lower East Side artist and activist Laura Nova spoke with The Lo-Down Culture Cast host Traven Rice about creating inter-generational projects with a wide array of people from the Lower East Side neighborhood.https://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2025/06/the-lo-down-culture-cast-public-artist-laura-nova.html
This Performance Invites You to Send Postcards to Older New Yorkers, Sarah Rose Sharp, Hyperallergic, October 18, 2019.
Artist Laura Nova’s “Spiels on Wheels” project replicates home-delivered meals to encourage you to send a story to the city’s seniors.https://hyperallergic.com/523407/spiels-on-wheels-performance-by-laura-nova/
November 3 (Monday – CLASS TRIP) – Week 10
Topic: Trip to Interference Archive, Brooklyn
Readings:
Jen Hoyer and Josh MacPhee, Interference Archive: Building a Counter-Institution in the US
Activities: TBD
November 10 (Monday) – Week 11
Guest speaker: Diane Enobabor
with Muindi Fanuel Muinidi and Allen Kwabena Frimpong (on zoom)
SUGARCANE: World-building beyond Place-making: How Black Artists are Sustaining their Social Practice beyond the Sao Paulo Biennial- Former social practice certificate alumni and PhD Candidate in Earth and Environmental Studies O. Diane Enobabor will discuss the relationship between social practice and praxis informed research by presenting Black Cite; Sight-Site a festival, convening, exhibit (created during her time as a SPCUNY fellow) for social practitioners in São Paulo, Brazil. She will be joined by Muindi Fanuel Muinidi– co architect of BCSS and also director/founder of BADS_Lab, the artist residency offered during BCSS, and urban planner and social practioner Allen Kwabena Frimpong, also known as nii.a.k who participated in the residency.
Visit: Black Cite; Sight-Site.
Reading: AbdouMaliq Simone People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg
November 17 (Monday) – Week 12
Topic: Theodore Harris
Hunted Everywhere: Collaging the Capitol a Manifesto
Readings: The Capitol Vetoed and other works by T. Harris
Watch: Amiri Baraka and Theodore Harris
November 24 (Monday – CLASS TRIP) – Week 13
Walking Home with Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo
756 Beck Street
Bronx, NY 10455
MAP: https://maps.app.goo.gl/hsZaa4z2L7UKCwjt9
During this experiential visit, Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful (SPCUNY Teaching Fellow in Residence 2025-26) welcomes a group of SPCUNY Fellows into his field of creative engagements in the South Bronx. Our gathering point is at Nicolás’ abode in the Longwood Historic District; home to some of the most committed activisms in our city. From there, we proceed to move into streets of the neighborhood that has guided Nicolás into many rites of passage in life: from Bronxhood into elderhood. During these two hours we walk, pause, notice our bodies, talk/write/sketch or draw as an ongoing way of relating to the moment and conversing with the place.
Wear layers and comfortable shoes. Bring a bottle of NYC tap water and a seasonal fruit to eat on this journey.
Please watch/read these materials before our gathering on November 24, 2025.
Readings & Materials:
Identity as Relational Practice
A Complicated Affair: Performing Life on the Margin between Art and Politics
Background Information
(Scroll down to More About the Bronx & Metta Meditation for Kelly Street Garden)
Also please see:
Video:
December 1 (Monday) – Week 14
OPEN DISCUSSION SESSION – FINAL PROJECT Q & A
_______________________________________________________________________________________
December 8 (Monday)- Week 15
Topic: FIrst Batch of Final Presentations
Activities: Student research project presentations
Guests: TBD
December 15 (Monday) – Week 16
Topic: Final Presentations & Course Wrap-up
Activities: Final presentations continued
Due: Final project documentation
Assignments and Expectations
A. Weekly Participation
- Generate questions and participate in discussions with peers and guests
- Come prepared with assigned readings completed
B. Research Project Presentation
- Present ongoing research project to class
- Date TBD based on student needs
C. Final Documentation
- Submit research project documentation by December 22, 2025
- Format: Written component with visual documentation if applicable
D. Specifications
In the final two weeks of class you will make a 12 minute presentation (including Q & A) about your research projects as they stand either completed or in-progress.
All images must be sent ideally as Power Point files to me via email in advance for me to upload before the day of your presentation, the signup sheet (shared via email).
Following the end of the semester, but no later than December 22, you will submit a PDF documenting your project and research that includes:
· A descriptive text of no less than 750 words.
· A minimum of 5 substantial research references (end or footnotes of books, academic papers, media, exhibition catalogs and so forth) used in your work.
· A set of illustrations (if applicable)
Five Research Questions for Course Framework
- The Definition Question: How does social practice differentiate itself from social service?
- The Institutionalization Question: Is social practice art radically opposed to mainstream culture or being co-opted by it?
- The Context Question: Who is a social practice artist and what agency do they have in contemporary society?
- The Aesthetic Question: Is there a specific social practice art aesthetic or formal repertoire?
- The Organizational Question: How do artistic and organizational needs intersect in social practice work?
Evaluation Criteria
- 33% Class participation and attendance
- 33% Research presentation
- 34% Final project documentation
Course Policies
Attendance
Essential due to participatory nature. Contact instructor immediately if problems arise.
Academic Integrity
Follow CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity: http://qc.cuny.edu/?id=IUHC
Accommodations
Students with disabilities should register with Special Services (Frese Hall, Room 111) during first week.
Important Dates
- September 22 – 24 No Classes at CUNY
- October 1 & 2 No Classes at CUNY
- October 13 (Monday) College Closed but Our class is Tuesday October 14
- October 20 (Monday) College Closed but Our class ia Friday October 24
- November 6: Last day to withdraw with grade of W
- December 22: Final project documentation due
Syllabus subject to change based on student interests and guest availability. Always refer to latest version