University Curriculum Committee
Proposal for New Course
1. Is this course being proposed for Liberal Studies designation?
If yes, route completed form to Liberal Studies.
Yes
No x
2. New course effective beginning what term and year? (ex. Spring 2009,
Summer 2009)
3. College
Fall 2011
See effective dates schedule.
Arts & Letters
4. Academic Unit /Department
5. Course subject/catalog number
7. Long course title
ART 315
School of Art
6. Units/Credit Hours
3
Site-specific, Place-Based Installation Art
(max 100 characters including spaces)
8. Short course title (max. 30 characters including
Installation Art
spaces)
9. Catalog course description (max. 30 words, excluding requisites).
Students will explore and research specific social and environmental topics gaining the knowledge, too
and skills necessary to design and create site-specific, place-based installations on campus.
10. Grading option:
Letter grade
X
Pass/Fail
or Both
(If both, the course may only be offered one way for each respective section.)
11. Co-convened with
11a. Date approved by UGC
(Must be approved by UGC prior to bringing to UCC. Both course syllabi must be presented)
12. Cross-listed with
(Please submit a single cross-listed syllabus that will be used for all cross-listed courses.)
13. May course be repeated for additional units? yes
x
no
a. If yes, maximum units allowed?
6
b. If yes, may course be repeated for additional units in the same term?
yes
no
x
(ex. PES 100)
14. Prerequisites (must be completed before
proposed course)
ART 135, ART 136, ART 150, and ART 151
15. Corequisites (must be completed with
proposed course)
16. Is the course needed for a new or existing plan of study
(major, minor, certificate)?
yes
no
X
Name of plan?
Note: If required, a new plan or plan change form must be submitted with this request.
17. Is a potential equivalent course offered at a community college (lower division only)
If yes, does it require listing in the Course Equivalency Guide?
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yes
yes
X
no
no
1
Please list, if known, the institution and subject/catalog number of the course
18. Names of current faculty qualified to teach this course:
Shawn Skabelund and Debra
Edgerton
19. Justification for new course, including unique features if applicable. (Attach proposed
syllabus in the approved university format).
In the spring of 2006, I taught a course entitled Site-specific Installation: Water in the
Southwest. I had 13 students in a course that was capped at 12. The following
semester on the first day of class, six students approached me asking when I would be
teaching an Installation Art class again. Since that initial Topics in Art class, students
continue to request this course. This semester I met with Dean Michael Vincent who
asked me if I would be willing to teach this course every other year. In support of this
course, School of Art Director Tom Patin emailed me by stating that “I’d like to see
courses like this, too.”
Installation art is one of the most important forms of art in today’s museums and
galleries. This course will fulfill a hole in the School of Art curriculum. As a practicing
installation artist, I would like to give art majors the opportunity to learn about and
experience this form of art, preparing them for graduate school where new media
courses such as installation art is found. The course will also benefit the University
community because 15 installations will be temporarily installed across the campus
inside various buildings.
For Official AIO Use Only:
Component Type
Consent
Topics Course
35. Approvals
Department Chair (if appropriate)
Date
Chair of college curriculum committee
Date
Dean of college
Date
For Committees use only
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2
For University Curriculum Committee
Date
Action taken:
Approved as submitted
Approved as
modified
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
College of Arts and Letters
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3
School of Art
Site-Specific, Place-based Installation Art
(Course prefix, number)
Spring 2011
3 Credit Hours
Day/Time:
Building/Room:
T/TH, 8:00 - 10:05
School of Art (37), Room 303, Combination #:
Instructor:
Shawn R. Skabelund (M.F.A., University of Iowa, 1990)
Office:
Office Phone:
E-mail:
Office Hours:
#304
523-8705
shawn.skabelund@nau.edu
T/TH, 1:45—2:30 or by appointment
Course Prerequisites: ART 135, ART 136, ART 150, ART 151 or permission of instructor
Course Description: This installation art course will be exploring the concept of water in the
Southwest and all of its implications from a variety of viewpoints—aesthetic, cultural, social,
political, environmental—through specific readings and artistic media. Through this process,
students will gain the knowledge, tools, and skills necessary to design and create place-based
site-specific installations.
In-class sessions will be supplemented by fieldtrips to gain hands-on information about specific
places in the Southwest where water/cultural issues are pertinent. These research trips, along
with the readings, will guide students in the conceptual as well as formal issues they will explore
in your work. This research will also help the students determine the materials they will use in
their designs. In addition, each student will choose a space to work with, to, so to speak,
“collaborate” with, as their final installations will be situated in indoor spaces throughout
campus. In the end, students will not only learn a great deal about hydraulic issues in the
Southwest but also about the varied processes involved in the creation of place-based sitespecific installation art.
Course Learning Expectations/Outcomes: As a result of this course students will have a
knowledge of the history of Installation Art. They will learn how to create a site-specific placebased installation by doing the research necessary to designing, critiquing, and ultimately
installing their work of art. They will gain an understanding of what materials would best work
for their designs and how the formal elements work/don’t work with their concept. They will
also gain an understanding of working with other faculty and building managers to get
permission and access to the spaces they will be working in, as well as simplifying their designs
in order to fit their allotted budget.
Course Structure and Approach: The course will be taught both as a seminar and as a studio
course. Class discussions will help students develop effective oral communication skills from
the readings and research for their projects and the class critiques of their individual designs and
installations.
Course Budget: This course is being financially supported through the School of Art, the
College of Arts and Letters Dean’s Office, and the Martin Springer Institute. We have been
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given $4500.00 to help run this class, for individual student installations and for the fieldtrips.
Each student will have approximately $300 to work with (some installations may require little of
this money, some may require more; the success of each piece is not dependent on how much a
student does or does not spend). This money will cover the costs both for the initial design (e.g.,
making a maquette if necessary) and for the materials needed for the final installation.
Required Texts: There are three books required for this course which can be purchased at the
NAU Bookstore:
Lippard, Lucy R. Overlay, Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory
Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert, The American West and Its Disappearing Water
Solnit, Rebecca. As Eve Said to the Serpent, On Landscape, Gender, and Art
Additional reading is encouraged. (See attachment.)
Required Materials: Pencil, sketchbook, and 25’ tape measure.
Fieldtrips: Our goal will be to schedule field trips to the following places: Montezuma Well,
Glen Canyon Dam, Lee’s Crossing, Flagstaff Waterworks, Arcosanti, Roden Crater, Spiral Jetty,
Lightning Fields. We will try to car pool as much as possible on the shorter day trips, to save
money both for the longer fieldtrips and for materials for our installations.
Semester Schedule:
Week 1—Introduction, Art 21: Ann Hamilton, New Yorker article.
—Visit sites/spaces around campus.
Week 2—Choose sites, discuss New Yorker article, watch Spiral Jetty.
—Hand out Craig Child’s The Secret Knowledge of Water.
—Measure sites.
Week 3—History of Installation Art. Discuss place-based site-specific installation art. Hand out
Wallace Stegner’s Living Dry and Striking the Rock essays. Hand out William Kittredge’s
chapter The Spin We’re In.
—Watch Rivers and Tides.
Week 4—Watch American Visions 3/8. Discussion on previous readings. Hand out Charles
Wilkinson’s Fire on the Mountain chapter and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.
—Visit the Flagstaff Waterworks.
Week 5—Watch Art 21. Discussion on previous readings. Hand out Peter Wiley/Robert
Gottlieb chapter in Empires of the Sun. Hand out Lucy Lippard’s “High Floods and Low
Waters” from The Lure of the Local.
—Watch Milagro Beanfield War or Chinatown.
Week 6—Discussion on previous readings. Hand out Barry Lopez’s chapter The Country of the
Mind from Artic Dreams.
—Class critique of individual designs.
Week 7—Watch Art 21. Discussion on previous readings. Hand out Suzi Gablik’s chapter 6
from The Reenchantment of Art.
—Class critique of individual designs.
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Week 8—Discussion on previous readings. Hand out Ellen Meloy chapter from The Last
Cheater’s Waltz: Beauty Violence in the Desert Southwest.
—Class critique of individual designs.
Week 9—Discuss the work of Ana Medieta, Wolfgang Laib, Maurizio Cattelan.
—Class critique of individual designs.
Week 10—Discuss/work on exhibition announcement/map.
—Work on installations.
Week 11—Have announcements ready for installations, including map of sites. Artist
Statements.
—Work on installations.
Week 12—Work on installations.
Week 13—Set up installations.
Week 14—Critique installations.
Week 15—Critique installations.
Attendance: 8:00-10:05. Be there. Attendance is mandatory. In order to get the most out of the
course, and to work together as a community of artists, I would encourage all to be prompt in
attending class, and the fieldtrips. Each day will be made up of discussion of readings, viewing
art, critiquing designs, and visiting specific spaces/sites.
Grade: Your grade will be determined by the following factor: participation. One fully
participates by doing the readings, viewing the artworks, being active in class discussions,
completing the necessary research (reading and fieldtrips), and by designing, critiquing, and
installing individual works.
Assessment:
1. Attendance and Participation: 50%. Given the structure of the course, which is
based on class discussions of readings and individual research, and class critiques of
individual designs, it is mandatory that you attend each class, participate actively and
demonstrate your knowledge and curiosity of the assigned readings and video
presentations. You will also be expected to participate fully in the class critiques of
the final installations.
2. Installation: 50%. Each installation will be critiqued as to whether it succeeds both
formally and conceptually and how the form is defined by both. It will also be
critiqued on whether the space has been defined and magnified by the design and
whether it is site-specific and place-based. And each installation will be critiqued on
craftsmanship.
Additional Readings:
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
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The Land of Little Rain, Mary Austin
Blue Desert, Charles Bowden
Killing the Hidden Waters, Charles Bowden
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
Soul of Nowhere, Craig Child
The Secret Knowledge of Water, Craig Child
The Desert Cries, Craig Child
A River No More, Philip Fradkin
A Life of Its Own, Robert Gottlieb
Desert Passages, Patricia Limerick
Basin and Range, John McPhee
The Milagro Beanfield War, John Nichols
Overtapped Oasis, Marc Reisner
The Conquest of Arid America, William Smythe
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Grand Colorado, T.H. Watkins
Rivers of Empires, Donald Worster
Under Western Skies, Donald Worster
An Unsettled Country, Donald Worster
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