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Sculpture: Open Studio

In this course “Sculpture” will be understood as open to an expansive and changing definition of its limits. Students may draw from its historical traditions or choose more experimental modes of production, in other media or methodologies. The course will be structured as an open studio, where students can bring in works as they progress through each individual’s studio thought and experiment. Students are expected to work independently in initiating their research, concepts, choice of mediums, and the installation/context for their projects. 

Spring 2026, FA-391-A, Sculpture: Open Studio, C Lehyt

Spring 2026, FA-391-B, Sculpture: Open Studio, A Vo: The body will be foregrounded as both material and site of sculptural inquiry, where the corporeal negotiation with space and time becomes integral to the emergence of form. Through attention to the socio-historical conditions of making and aesthetic consumption, students will consider how bodies encounter, resist, and are shaped by the materials and structures around them.

Spring 2026, FA-391-C, Sculpture: Open Studio, B Harlan: How can we co-create learning spaces that support building and practicing constructive knowing? This class will highlight play and variety as a method to refine process. We will embrace the diverse functions created when giving form to material, pursuing collective learning goals and ideas. 

Spring 2026, FA-391-D, Sculpture: Open Studio, f harrington

Spring 2026, FA-391-E, Sculpture: Open Studio, S Kwon

Fall 2025, FA-391-1, Sculpture: Open Studio, I Okariz

Fall 2025, FA-391-2, Sculpture: Open Studio, L Raven

Fall 2025, FA-391-3, Sculpture: Open Studio, C Irijalba: In this class we will focus on context responsive, site-specific art practices at the intersections between sculpture, installation, and moving image, expanding from traditional exhibition spaces like museums and galleries to public space interventions and time-based media. We will work on becoming permeable to the material and immaterial field that’s around us. The power of transformation of this object or that image is around the corner if we persevere on the relation with the material and visual environment we respond to. We will learn how to develop sensitivity to the nuances, the hidden meanings, and connotations of the material world.

Fall 2025, FA-391-4, Sculpture: Open Studio, S Kwon

Fall 2025, FA-391-5, Sculpture: Open Studio, A Ross

Fall 2025, FA-391-6, Sculpture: Open Studio, D Johnson: This course will emphasize a balance between craft and concept in making sculpture as creative acts that produce physical interventions in the world. Unlike other courses, we will work closely with the 4th-floor shop facilities to explore how a combination of woodworking and metalworking, as well as other fabrication methods (plastics, casting, sewing, new technologies, etc.), can facilitate and expedite each student’s vision. 

Fall 2025, FA-391-7, Sculpture: Open Studio, D Kenny

3 credits. May be repeated.

Course Code: FA-391

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.