FRAME: BOUNDARY

This project will explore the boundaries of the body, personal space, identity, and/or specific materials, and how these boundaries, or perceived boundaries, define our everyday experiences. Students will create, reconfigure, regenerate, or assemble objects or experiences that will accentuate boundaries inherently in place, create or define new boundaries based on personal experience, and explore the purpose or meaning of boundaries, and ways to confront boundaries. The functions of the objects created will provide an opportunity to investigate and question what a boundary is and/or can be.

EDURING IDEAS
Boundary is a social construction. The idea of boundary creates a physical definition of space. Sculptural objects can redefine what we consider boundaries: they can abolish or change former boundaries or create new ones. As artists and imaginative individuals we have the ability to create new definitions of the space we inhabithow we see and experience space. Through this ability, we can take charge to make changes in our lives. Abolishing or changing a boundary can be a protest against institutionally imposed or expected behavior. Materials themselves are considered to have, or themselves become, physical boundaries: the brittleness or flexibility of a material determines how far you can bend it before/ until it breaks. Ropes around artworks at the museum keep you from getting too close, glass protects an object behind it, paint provides a surface boundary on the material a house is made out of, plastic covers the wires we use to transfer energy (charging our computers, lighting our lamps)

ENDURING QUESTIONS
What is a boundary? How are boundaries defined? What is the difference between a personal and a public boundary? How might you engage space and materials to define, engage, create or accentuate a boundary? How might the boundaries of a material be defined?

CONCEPTS ADDRESSED IN THIS LESSON

There are boundaries of all types in our lives. Boundaries can be public, personal, invisible, and physical. Fences, walls, county lines, state lines, customs officers on our way in and out the country, ropes around artworks at the museum keep you from getting too close, glass to protect an object behind it, and plastic to cover the wires we use to transfer energy (charging our computers, lighting our lamps). We put boundaries up to maintain privacy, protection, safety, and security. Boundaries define space, but they also define greed, fear, tradition, displacement, assimilation, migration, residence, limits, a commute, a divide, an edge, and? Artists, as researchers and artistic pioneers, have the ability to push the boundaries with their work. Through the engagement of space and an exploratory, playful and inventive use of materials, artwork can create, challenge, impose, expose, engage or abolish boundaries of all kinds.

Fixing and Regenerating What are the boundaries of a material? How far can you bend something till it breaks, and how easy is it to put something together after it has been broken? Where do you see evidence of fracture, deterioration, or wear in your daily life? In this project you will examine occasions of rupture (physical or conceptual)evidence of friction, pressure, stress, collapse, shock, slicing, and dissecting, and modes of repair, such as the stitch, splint, brace, patch, make-over, cover-up, gluefor the potential for cross-over solutions. You might provide a solution to the problem of a break, you might fix the break, or you might use the break to give the occasion a new purpose. You will select something to undergo a type of repair borrowed from another context or media. Successful solutions will Reinterpret an occasion of rupture in an inventive and surprising way Show evidence of care and true interest in the regeneration of an occasion of rupture: indication that the choice was specific and meaningful Show serious attention to craft and detail

MARK: TRACE
This project will explore how a mark can serve as the evidence of the existence of the maker. We will address how a mark or trace can define a period of time simply by how long it lasts or how long it remains in the world. Memory, its truth and its fiction, as well as the residue of experienceof a lifewill be explored through discussion and artistic research. Students will exercise their inventiveness and engage in a heightened awareness of time.

ENDURING IDEAS
A mark can serve as a record of human life, evidence of the maker, and evidence of time, both duration and a moment in time (history) An artwork can be the evidence of an occurrence or action. It is up to the artist to decide what the artwork is: the experience itself, or the evidence of the experience. A moment that calls attention to itself can create a heightened awareness of time, and make the ordinary extraordinary. Trace is evidence, or the following of evidence, to the source, or towards the imagined future.

ENDURING QUESTION
How do we mark our presence? How do we assign meaning to our existence? When is something, or someone, really gone? How do we define history? What is a history, and can history real, or imagined? How is history perceived, shared, and taught? Is history contingent upon a human mark; some sort of record of communication? Is history specific to human life? When something is gone, does it become meaningless?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Knowledge: TSW examine specific examples of pre-history evidence of human life. TSW analyze and evaluate contemporary works of art which serve as evidence of the existence of the maker, the existence of life, or as evidence of a previous experience or action.

TSW consider and discuss the idea of permanence, and the longevity of artworks, of the material as well as impact on culture. TSW research and discuss how a mark might define a period of time, historically, culturally, geographically, or psychologically

Skills: TWS think imaginatively and create a work of art that traces a moment or an experience, or leave a trace of one. TSW define a moment in time by constructing a well-informed aesthetic narrative. Values: TSW assign meaning to a moment through the construction of a wellconsidered work of art. TSW consider how human history is created, how memory informs history, and analyze how history might be changed, invented, and manipulated, and subsequently consider how history should be interpreted.

CONCEPTS ADDRESSED IN THIS LESSON

The word trace can serve as both a noun (a thing) and a verb (action). MerriamWebster Online Dictionary describes trace as a path, a mark or line left, a passage, a sign or evidence or some past thing, a line, a small bit; to sketch, to traverse, to track, to discover evidence, to follow or study. In art we may see that an artist physically traced something with her pencil, or traced the life of something or someone. Perhaps we see the trace, or residue, of what was the art, or a trace of the experience that created the art. Or maybe the artist recreates an environment or situation based on the trace evidence left from its previous life. As artists we can interpret, reinterpret, and remember current and historic events in different ways; and through an examination of residue, evidence, and impression, we can develop a keener sense of timeof what it means to remember time, experience time, and describe (a) time.

Future Species Historical Timeline (Project created by Lindsey Fromm) Natural History Museums and biology books will show us how species have evolved, but we can only speculate how species will continue to evolve.

For this project, you are encouraged to speculate, imagine, and become the mastermind behind the evolution of a future species. By looking at drawings and skeletons uncovered by archeologists, create a series of drawings which illustrate how a species that exists now might evolve. You should create at least 5 well developed drawings, paintings, or sculptures, that show 5 different stages of evolution. Consider why this species is being forced to evolve. How is their ecosystem, environment, food source, or migration pattern changing? Trace the species backwards to have a better idea of how it might evolve, and research the biological organization and taxonomic rank (Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species). Successful solutions will: Present a high-quality, finished work of art Demonstrate an artistic tracing of the preexistent, existent, and invented future species, in construction and display. Demonstrate thorough research and an understanding of the chosen species, and informed creative decision-making.