Course 5: Join, or Die, or...
by Daniel Cosentino
8 – 13 August 2022
2 ECTS
Course Description
This course explores individual relationships to the collective(s) that form societies and define environments. "Join, or Die" refers to a political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin in the years before the United States was formed. Its use and meaning shifted over time through various appropriations of meaning on the struggle between individual and collective belonging. Using this as a metaphor, students will explore the questions that must be explored to define one's practice. Defining oneself in the arts requires multifaceted proposals of the individual to a host of abstract bodies such as; political, specific genres or movements, social groups, economic conditions, national affiliations, inter-relational propositions, religions and dogmas, and a host of other bodies of ideas. These affiliations build communities that, when refined as a proposition, get mapped back into the embodied self of the individual. That embodiment forms the outward representation in expression of the spirit (the logos) of societies while also constructing its limits or defined boundaries. Success in contemporary production is often more about how the work reads and maps from the individual to the collective body or spirit in a time or place that can shift, alter or change rapidly. Students will explore pieces of the self to pieces of the environment that put form to these parts and generate work in response to questions raised in discussion.
Biography
Daniel Cosentino is a Multimedia Artist and educator specialized in photographic processes and discourses. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy (Minor in Music Theory/Classical Guitar) from Rutgers University, NJ (1998) and a Master of Fine Arts in Imaging Arts/Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology - RIT (2009). In the period 2008 - 2010, he served as an Adjunct Professor at RIT College of Art & Design and at the University of Rochester School of Arts and Sciences. From September 2010 to 2020 he was based in Prishtina as an Assistant Professor at RIT Kosovo (formerly American University in Kosovo - A.U.K) via the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Global Programs. He is currently based in New Jersey as an Assistant Professor and Coordinator for the Visual and Performing Arts at the Sussex County Community College. Cosentino's major grants include: "Community Design Prishtina - American Embassy in Prishtina, Kosovo (2015); AMICAL - "International Workshop: Engage Students in Creative Multimedia Production", in collaboration with The American University in Cairo (2014); and RIT Provost's Grant for Innovation and Learning - "Multi-Campus Environmental Research and Media Collaboration," (2012). His works have recently been shown at the Revision/Respond, New Jersey Arts Annual at the Newark Museum of Art; New Photography II, Academy Art Museum (2020); Realism: Encountering the Real, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2020); Gender in the Balance: National Juried Exhibition, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY (2019); and 66th Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, NY (2019).
Participation
10 participants will be selected to participate in this course. Eligible participants must read the Terms information, fill out the application form, upload the required documents and submit the application form. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
The participation fee 300€.
The participation fee 300€.
Scholarships are available for participants from Kosovo.