SI’s multigenerational class, Contemporary Art Topics (CAT), began in 2018 in partnership with the Educational Alliance Sirovich Center, a nearby center for older adults in the East Village. During the pandemic, SI embarked upon a new opportunity to engage adults of all ages, and connect the older adult students from Sirovich to a wider community through multigenerational classes.
Open to adults of all ages (18+), SI’s Contemporary Art Topics program is a unique discussion-based course designed to investigate current themes and issues being explored by living artists today. Thematically-based and artist-led, these two-hour classes introduce concepts and ideas in contemporary art through lectures, guest artist talks, class discussions, “slow looking” at art, individual and group activities, as well as opportunities to share student artwork.
Past program topics have included: the four elements in contemporary art, contemporary artists creating urban space interventions, regenerative life cycles in art making, materials and processes, use of color in contemporary art practice, history of color materiality and symbolism, wandering as art, craft and folk arts, ritual in art, the intersection of art and ecology, and art as food/food as art.
Summer 2025 Contemporary Art Topics Class | Public and Socially Engaged Art
From Tania Bruguera’s politically charged interventions to rafa esparza’s performances in public parks using adobe and collective labor, artists today are reimagining how art operates in civic life. Public and socially engaged art challenges the idea of art as a solitary, object-based practice and instead invites collaboration, participation, and dialogue. In this course, we will examine how contemporary artists blur the boundaries between art and activism, aesthetics and ethics, author and audience. We’ll consider projects that take place in parks, plazas, subways, and city streets, as well as those embedded in communities, institutions, and social systems. Together, we’ll explore how artists use their work to address urgent issues such as housing, climate change, migration, labor, and racial justice—and how they redefine the role art plays in shaping our world.
This course aims to center BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and multigenerational artists from various backgrounds and mediums. It includes lectures, guest artist talks, class discussions, “slow looking” at art, individual and group activities, as well as opportunities to share student artwork.
Classes will meet between July 17 and August 9, 2025 for 4 virtual sessions, plus 1 in-person trip in NYC for local students for a total of 5 classes.
CAT is always free!
This class is facilitated by SI Teaching Artist, Gabriela López Dena.
Registration for Summer 2025 is now open! Please complete this form to register.
If you have any questions, please email education@swissinstitute.net.