Falaks Vasa
Falaks Vasa (they/she, b. 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist, emerging writer and award-winning educator from Kolkata, India. Falaks graduated from Brown University with an MFA in literary arts in 2023 and from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in 2018. She has also attended artist residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Artists’ Cooperative Residency & Exhibitions (ACRE). They have published a chapbook of poetry with the unnamed zine project, won the Archambault Award for Teaching Excellence from Brown University and have shown their artwork internationally at spaces like the Queer Arts Festival, Vancouver; the Queens Museum, NYC; and BARTALK, The Hague.
Courses
Spring 2024 Courses
THAD H102-01
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design.
Required for graduation for all undergraduates.
First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division. Transfer and sophomore and above students should register into the evening section offered in the spring.
For schedule conflicts during lecture times, please contact the Academic Programs Coordinator in the Liberal Arts Division office. For issues with registration, contact the Registrar's office for assistance.
Major Requirement | BFA
THAD H102-02
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design.
Required for graduation for all undergraduates.
First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division. Transfer and sophomore and above students should register into the evening section offered in the spring.
For schedule conflicts during lecture times, please contact the Academic Programs Coordinator in the Liberal Arts Division office. For issues with registration, contact the Registrar's office for assistance.
Major Requirement | BFA
DM 1810-01
JUICY CARCASSES, ABUNDANT FUTURES: DETRITUS AS NOURISHMENT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
‘Juicy Carcasses, Abundant Futures: Detritus as Nourishment’ is a course that challenges creative practitioners to listen to the wisdom of non-human detritivores, and transform that which is discarded. We will explore how those of us in the margins can reconstruct new worlds from the still active, reeking remains of (post)coloniality. Thinking through the work of scholars like Homi Bhabha and his idea of the Third Space, Fred Moten and his idea of Noise and fugitivity, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ radical lessons from marine mammals, this course calls us to cease our resisting of dominant hegemonies with the tools of their making, and instead find each other outside of the binary of oppression/resistance, within a space of our own invention. As we chew and pick at these juicy carcasses of oppressive systems, we will dream new futures, new worlds, new practices, all the while drawing inspiration from the emergent practices of non-human detritivores. The central conceptual framework of this class is that of the whale fall. When a whale dies and sinks to the ocean floor, it attracts non-human detritivores from unfathomable distances, which then give rise to multiple generations of non-human detritivores over scores of years. These detritivores have been known to collaborate rather than compete for this abundant resource. Over time, they evolve to specialize and thrive on the specific kinds of nourishment the
individual whale provides. A whale falls in this course. We gather, collaborate, revel in its abundance, build our own worlds, and emerge. ‘Juicy Carcass, Abundant Futures: Detritus as Nourishment’ invites practitioners with relationships to (post)colonial thinking, (post)human thinking, interdisciplinary thinkers, grievers, queers, worldbuilders, artists from all disciplines, writers, biologists, and those working with discarded materials, rot, non-humans, systemic decay, and abundance. Learning will be through
readings, screenings, independent assignments, interdisciplinary artmaking, writing, and critiques.
Estimated Materials Cost: $100.00
Elective
THAD H102-27
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design.
Required for graduation for all undergraduates.
First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division. Transfer and sophomore and above students should register into the evening section offered in the spring.
For schedule conflicts during lecture times, please contact the Academic Programs Coordinator in the Liberal Arts Division office. For issues with registration, contact the Registrar's office for assistance.
Major Requirement | BFA