IDOCS 04/05-1
At the November 4th faculty meeting, IDOCS will move approval of Art TA 229 as the Field
Supervised course for the Fall 2005 Term in Asia.
Course: Art TA 229: Asia through Color and Design
Offered: Term in Asia, Fall 2005
Catalog Description: Through a combination of readings and studio practice, students will synthesize the experiences of travel, study, reflection, interpretation, and living in the diverse cultures of Japan, China,
Thailand, and Vietnam. Students will reflect, analyze, interpret, and compose visual information within
the context of a visual journal involving drawing (compositions in mixed media) and writing. Particular
emphasis will be placed upon comparisons of the use of color, space, and composition within several
Asian traditions.
GE credit: ALS-A, MCS-G
Other credit: Art and Art History major; Asian Studies concentration and major
Rationale: As contemporary humans we face a world characterized by the constant interplay of
information and visual stimulus from a multitude of sources. Instead of recognizing only one solipsistic
center of reality, artists worldwide are aware that political, economic, cultural, and scientific arenas are
multiple, overlapping, and divergent. Technology has dramatically altered the space and reach of the
human senses. Combined with an understanding that meaning is contextual to one’s environment and
culture, this leads to artworks that are interdisciplinary, symbolic, and reflective.
Color plays an enormous role in our daily existence as human beings. It informs our sense of place, time,
culture, and relationships. It is an ever-present factor in the natural world—both as we react to it and as
we, as humans, selectively choose to create our own “human-made” environments. Cultures throughout
the world have specific color and design identities informed by their places, traditions, people, climate,
religious practices, and political and economic structures.
This course will draw strength from and be integrated with the other courses students take during the
term: Asian Studies TA 250: Environmental Issues in Japan and China; Sociology TA 255: Thai
Society; Thai TA 111: Thai Language; and History TA 265: Modern Vietnam History. The course will
facilitate a synthesis of visual interpretation that reflects upon the cultural traditions as experienced in
Japan, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Visually, artistically, and experientially, nothing can duplicate firsthand
experience when interpreting time and place. The ability to slow down, to see, to reflect, and to
interpret while in an existing space is always unique and challenging. Whether in the midst of a dense
Tokyo street, the mountains of China and Thailand, or the open rice-filled deltas of Vietnam, the
challenge to synthesize and interpret this experience (into compositions/works of art) will be greatly
enhanced by immersions within these places and cultures.
