June 25-July 20, 2012
This month-long residency in Seoul offers 3 studio credits in interdisciplinary sculpture, with an optional 3 credits in art history-classes may be taken for undergraduate and graduate credit or audit. The program is open to undergraduate or graduate students (rising sophomores to second-year graduate students), and to lifelong learners at least 18 years of age who have completed at least one year of college study. All students must have a current, valid passport for travel.
Set in one of Asia's most dynamic cities, this program challenges students to create artwork based on their experience of place and culture. Seoul, only a generation away from its traditional Confucian and Buddhist roots, has undergone the transformation of an industrial revolution and is now in an exciting period of cultural ascendancy producing exemplary works in the fields of fine arts, architecture, and design.
Program faculty help students gain insight into professional development of the artist in the global context. Students and faculty investigate the unique and vibrant city of Seoul through group excursions and then return to the studio to create work that is filtered through these new experiences. MICA's partner for the program is the progressive Korean National University of Arts, also known as K'ARTS, which provides accommodations, studio space, and special events. In addition, K'ARTS students join our group as participants. This cultural exchange culminates in a group exhibition in the gallery space at K'ARTS.
In 2012, the Korea program is delighted to have an artist visit with Korean-born, New York-based conceptual artist, Nikki S. Lee. Lee's work examines the construction and interpretation of identity in works that combine performance and photography. Lee's photographs are exhibited widely and held in many collections, including those of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the International Center for Photography and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Fukuoka, Japan. Her most recent film, "a.k.a. Nikki S. Lee" which premiered at MOMA is shot on digital video mainly in New York, Seoul, Paris, Venice, Mexico City, Frankfurt, and Santa Fe, explores and expands the play between truth and fiction. The film--about assuming identities, any one of which may indeed be Lee's true identity--tracks the events of the two most recent years of Lee's own life and suggests that someone else is making the autobiographical documentary in which at least two distinct personalities emerge as she shops, visits art collectors at home, and attends gallery openings abroad. Lee is currently working on her new film project and has lived in Seoul since 2010.
Program Fees
Airfare is not included in the program fees below, which include all accommodations, all field trips, and some meals:
- $5,500 includes tuition for 3 undergraduate studio credits in interdisciplinary sculpture
- $7,000 includes tuition for 3 undergraduate studio credits in interdisciplinary sculpture + 3 undergraduate credits in art history (as an independent study by special arrangement with the MICA Department of Art History)
Graduate credit is available to qualified students with the approval of the Program Coordinator at an additional cost of $50 per credit. A limited number of merit and need-based scholarships may be available, contingent on the continued availability of gift and grant funding. To inquire about scholarships or request a detailed itinerary or additional information on this and other MICA programs, contact the MICA Summer Travel Intensives program at: summertravel@mica.edu or by phone: 410.225.2219.
Faculty
Charlie Hahn, program coordinator, is a media artist whose primary mediums are photography and time-based media. He received both BFA in photography and MA in digital arts from MICA and MFA from Towson University. Hahn is a Korean-born American artis. His art explores issues about identity and culture as they relate to opposition, agreement, synthesis, paradox, and transformation. His work has been exhibited across the country and around the world. As a research artist in the Institute of Media Art at Yonsei University, he has performed many South Korean government projects granted by the Ministry of Family & Gender Equality, the Ministry of Culture, the Korea Foundation, and the Presidential project, "Hub City of Asian Culture, Gwangju". Since 2008, Charlie has taught and directed the MICA in South Korea summer progra. He also acts as faculty advisor to the Korean Student Association at MICA.
Ryan Hoover, faculty, employs a wide range of media to investigate philosophical issues and critically analyze contemporary culture. He currently teaches in MICA's interdisciplinary sculpture department. He received his MFA from MICA's Mount Royal School of Art and his BFA in sculpture and BA in philosophy from the University of North Carolina, Asheville. He has published and presented his research, conducted in the U.S. and Eastern Europe on experimental methods for casting metal sculptures and exhibited his work in the U.S., Latvia, and Finland. His current work employs digital and computer scripting skills in the making of physical art objects, including paintings that critically analyze the role of technology in contemporary society with a particular focus on technical advances and theoretical paradigms following WWII.
Sarah Doherty is a full-time professor in the Interdisciplinary Sculpture department at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is an artist whose work explores the intersections of art, architecture, urban spaces and technology through installation art and urban intervention projects. Installation works have combined sculptural materials, with video, computer controlled media and light to explore the ideas of experiential and participatory art. While an instructor in the visual art program at MIT, Sarah had the opportunity to collaborate with architects and engineers developing art in urban spaces that question and create dialogue with the notion of the transformation of space into place. Sarah has exhibited in cities across the nation including Boston, New York and San Francisco, has created numerous urban interventions as well as web-based pieces. Sarah has also developed and coordinated unique exhibition opportunities for artists such as a project in San Diego called, "the mythical search for the axis mundi", in which she was instrumental in transforming a blighted warehouse in downtown through a public art project, which resulted in the eminent domain status being lifted, and then, after being offered free space by the elderly property owners, worked with her students at the University of San Diego to renovate and restore a section of the building to create a downtown professional gallery space for the students. Recently she has been involved in coordinating with the city of Baltimore and community associations the use of city owned vacant properties to transform a blighted and dangerous alley into a venue of art for numerous artists which has been awarded selection in the 2010 Public Art Network Year in Review. Also in the Baltimore community, Sarah has been a founding member and is vice president of the board of trustees for "D:center Baltimore", an organization that fosters the innovation of design thinking and practice in Baltimore and involves collaboration with architects, artists, engineers, educational institutions and the community. Sarah has also been the principal of Vortex Studios for the last 15 years, which specializes in custom fabrication, design and consultation for residential, institutional and public projects and has worked closely with architects, developers and public artists.
For more information on any of these summer programs, please contact us.
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