Summer Week 4: July 30-August 5, 2017
Sunday, July 30 – Saturday, August 5, 2017
Art and Activism:
Living a Creative Life at a Time
when Imagination is Needed Most
with Heather Jessup and friends
WHEN PEACE FEELS TENUOUS, political rhetoric turns divisive, and empathy and compassion become depleted in our public conversation, how do we uphold the brave practice of making art?
How do we justify our time spent retreating into ourselves to read a book, take out a paintbrush, or compose a sentence or song in our notebooks? What is the point of a poem when the world is on fire?
But such times are precisely when imagination is needed most.
This course will inspire, encourage, and teach ways of keeping a sustainable artistic practice that does not ignore the world’s injustices, but seeks ways to offer our creativity and quietude as acts of activism and peace in our own homes, workplaces, and communities.
We will look at visual art, performances, short essays, stories, and poetry for inspiration. We will make art every day, primarily through creative writing, but also through the mediums of drawing, painting, music, and photography.
For, as author Toni Morrison advises, “There is no time for despair and no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
HEATHER JESSUP holds a doctorate from the University of Toronto in English Literature, and taught creative writing at Dalhousie University and art history at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax before moving back home to Vancouver, where she now teaches at Langara College.
Her first novel The Lightning Field was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC award and was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Fiction Prize. She has taught creative writing programs twice before at Sorrento Centre and is delighted to be back.
Course Fee: $320