Interdisciplinary Arts Capstone Studio (PANF 4990): Course Syllabus
Emilia White
Fall 2024 & Winter 2025
York University School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD), Integrative Arts

Course Description:
Interdisciplinary Arts Capstone Studio (PANF4990) is the culminating course for students in the Integrative Arts program and is open to any fourth-year students at AMPD. In partnership with the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, students will develop projects inspired by creative prompts from the museum. These projects may incorporate performance, digital media, visual art, design, and other disciplines to respond to the museum’s artwork and philosophy, enhancing audience engagement with its programming.

Students will drive project development based on their creative interests and research, merging their skills into self-directed, collaborative projects. The course includes lectures and workshops with visiting artists and curators specializing in socially engaged art and museum studies.

Collaboration is central to the course, with students leveraging a shared understanding of interdisciplinarity, art history, and social justice. Class activities focus on teamwork and client interaction, preparing students for careers in creative fields. The final projects produced will significantly enhance students’ professional portfolios while contributing to the museum’s community engagement efforts.

Learning Objectives:
Throughout this course, students will achieve the following learning outcomes:

Synthesis of Ideas:
Students will integrate concepts from diverse sources accumulated over four years of study, leveraging them to develop a significant project inspired by the Aga Khan Museum and its community.

Project Proposal Development:
Students will craft comprehensive project proposals outlining the project’s intention, execution plan, and alignment with the expressed values of the Museum.

Organizational Skills:
Students will refine their organizational abilities, understanding the tasks required to complete a major project within specified timelines.

Creative Production:
Students will generate tangible creative outputs, including tests, sketches, experiments, early versions, and research materials that demonstrate their creative process and development.

Contextual Research:
Students will conduct thorough research on information pertinent to their project, including historical precedents, related works, events, and relevant concepts from various disciplines.

Collaboration:
Through interdisciplinary collaboration with peers, museum staff, and curators, students will explore diverse perspectives and ideas, fostering collaborative skills and innovative approaches to art-making.

Reflective Practice:
Students will engage in reflective writing, contextualizing and critically evaluating their work through written proposals and statements, thereby enhancing their ability to articulate and justify their creative decisions.

Event Co-Organization:
Students will co-organize the final presentation event in collaboration with the Aga Khan Museum, taking on responsibilities such as event logistics management, installation, audience engagement, and promotion. This will provide them with hands-on experience in event coordination and execution.

Course Expectations:
Class participation is a vital part of this course, which will primarily be conducted in a seminar style. To grow over the course of the semester, we must invest fully in our time together, which means coming to class with questions and thoughts, and then being willing to give one another our most attentive selves. For some students, this may mean talking in class more frequently than might be comfortable. For others, this may mean developing listening skills, so they can forward the conversation with their contributions. For all of us, active, engaged participation means challenging ourselves and others to think deeply, critically, and specifically—always willing to meet the demands of uncomfortable and/or overwhelming reading and performance material. All of these classroom practices, of course, require regular attendance and on-time arrivals to class. It will be very difficult to get an A or B in this course without active participation in class.

Assignments:
Fall 2024:

Reading/Viewing Responses: 10% of grade
There will be two reading assignments to respond to thoughtfully during the semester.

Creative Practice and Background Presentation: 5% of grade
Each student will have up to 7 minutes to give a Google Slides presentation that addresses a series of questions related to their creative practice and interests.

Aga Khan Questions: 5% of grade
Following an initial visit to the Aga Khan Museum to meet with the curators and staff on Friday, September 20th, you will divide into research groups and come up with a list of follow-up questions to further inform the development of your projects.

Research Inquiry: 15% of grade
The Research Inquiry paper will refine your research interests for the final project. You will build on previous questions and writing you have submitted for the class, delving deeper into the primary and secondary research you have conducted independently about your chosen topic or challenge.

Creative Iteration Critique: 15% of grade
You will share the progress of your creative exploration for the project and participate in a group critique. This can be anything from initial sketches and renderings to a test version of a video or an experiment conducted in the studio based on your project interests. You’re not expected to present a finished product, but rather a series of investigations around the theme that you have conducted both inside and outside of class.

Final Written Proposal & Presentation: 35% of grade
Your final written proposal and presentation will represent the culmination of your research and creative inquiry during the Fall semester. The proposal will include the following components:

Introduction (or Abstract)

Context

Significance

Form and Methodology

It will be presented to your classmates and collaborators at the Aga Khan Museum during a final class event and will serve as a segue into your project execution during the Winter 2025 semester.

Attendance & Participation: 15% of grade
This class is designed to be taught in person and experienced in person, with active participation in group discussions, class critiques, in-class exercises, and visiting artist presentations being essential.

Winter 2025:

Work-in-Progress: 20% of grade
The Work-in-Progress should be a physical representation of the final project that the class can see and respond to. This should be a “tangible” thing (e.g., object, mock-installation, video, series of drawings or photographs, etc.). Consider this the halfway point of your final iteration.

Final Creative Project: 40% of grade
Your Final Project for this course is composed of three parts:

The Short Description & Written Statement (30%)
The Creative Work (70%)

These components are due simultaneously on Friday, March 21. They are divided into two different assignments and calculated under the Final Project in the gradebook.

Your final creative work is the project you've been working on all semester, in its final form! This work will be presented to the public and must be complete and ready to be shown by the deadline. Your final project will be graded on the following criteria:

Concept: Independent and Critical Thinking Skills

Conceptual clarity/originality and evidence of critically reflecting on stated intentions.

Form: Visual and Making Skills

Evidence of skills in realizing concepts in physical and/or digital form; applying principles of visual organization and design; attention to craft and detail.

Process & Context:

Has it been done?
Risk-taking and other evidence of process strategies and ambition.
Experimentation
Evidence of interdisciplinary exploration
Evidence of outside resources
Integration of research

Presentation:

Quality of presentation
Thoughtful consideration of the display of the work and how it engages the audience.

Final Online Portfolio: 25% of grade
our Final Portfolio is a professional online website that includes the following components:

Curriculum Vitae (worth 15% of final portfolio grade)
Artist Bio (worth 15% of final portfolio grade)
Final Creative Work Portfolio (worth 70% of final portfolio grade)

Having a website and online presence is essential for every creative professional, especially for you, fourth-year students, as you prepare to graduate and transition into your careers. While this assignment focuses on documenting your final project for the class, you are encouraged to include additional portfolio pieces, either now or in the future.

If you already have an artist website, use this opportunity to update and refine its content. As artists and creative practitioners, we are constantly evolving. I personally revisit my website every few months to ensure it remains current, polished, and well-organized.

The choice of website platform and design is entirely up to you. Whether you prefer a simple or more elaborate approach, strive for a style that aligns with your artistic vision and career goals. Below, I’ve included links to several effective artist websites as examples. Take time to explore them and reflect on the visual aesthetic that best represents your work. Remember, minimalism can often be a powerful asset.

Your final website and portfolio submission is due on April 4, and it will include three key components. To help you manage your workload, I’ve set individual deadlines throughout the semester. I will give a presentation on artist websites and professional development on Friday, January 17.

I strongly recommend setting up the basic structure of your website early in the semester. This will allow you to gradually add new components as we go. The final and most important component—the documentation and written description of your final creative project —must be included by the April 4 deadline.

‘Objects Talk’: Interpreting Objects through Community Groups, Andrew McLellan and Oliver Douglas, Journal of Museum Ethnography, March 2004.

This Being Human – Abbas Rattani, This Being Human Podcast by the Aga Khan Museum, Season 3 Episode 2

Bomb Global: Portland, Jen Delos Reyes, November 10, 2011

How do you use the internet mindfully?, The Creative Independent, 2018

My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge. What could yours be?, Laurel Schwulst, The Creative Independent, 2018

Hammer Museum’s Public Engagement Artist in Residence report

Visiting Artists & Speakers:

Bita Pourvash and Marianne Fenton, Aga Khan Museum

Shimul Chowdhury, Mipsterz

Jen Delos Reyes

Dan Tapper

Website resources:

Free websites:

Cargo (free subscription code available through York University)

Wix (has free and paid options)

Wordpress (has free and paid options)

Weebly (has free and paid options)

Carrd (one-page website)

Paid websites:

Squarespace (comprehensive, professional website that is easy to manage and customize. Costs $192 per year)

Other People's Pixels (designed for artists, students get two months free, then it's $16 monthly)

Big Cartel (good for artist business websites)

GoDaddy

Pixpa