Jumping Ship
Current economic woes are coloring the aspirations of Parsons’ graduating class, and the other talented designers and creatives about to leave school across the country. Dreams of high rolling, glamorous career options requiring little more complements to talent than taste, charm, and social aptitude are crumbling as we all tighten out belts. I am hopeful that more purposeful creative endeavors driven an investment in equality and diversity will persevere in the absence of less substantive rewards, and duly impact the education of artist and designers. Holland Cotter of the New York Times is hopeful too.
Why not make studio training an interdisciplinary experience, crossing over into sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, poetry and theology? Why not build into your graduate program a work-study semester that takes students out of the art world entirely and places them in hospitals, schools and prisons, sometimes in-extremis environments, i.e. real life?
I’m there with you, Cotter, as are some of my colleagues at Parsons who jump at oppertunites to participate in urban development projects, international design projects in place that even I have to look up on a map, and reach across institutional divides to meaningfully collaborate with colleagues in the social sciences. I’m glad I’ve put in the leg work required to complete The New School’s dual degree program.
Cotter goes on:
Will the art industry continue to cling to art’s traditional analog status, to insist that the material, buyable object is the only truly legitimate form of art, which is what the painting revival of the last few years has really been about? Will contemporary art continue to be, as it is now, a fancyish Fortunoff’s, a party supply shop for the Love Boat crew? Or will artists — and teachers, and critics — jump ship, swim for land that is still hard to locate on existing maps and make it their home and workplace?
I’m jumping ship (if I were ever on it…). Who’s with me?
interdisciplinary is the way to go!