Year

2020 - 2022

Program

Periscope Summer Urban Lab

 



About
The Periscope Art and Architecture Educational Institute welcomed high school students to participate in four, one week multidisciplinary sessions designed by practicing contemporary artists, architects, and educators in an effort to equip students with valuable technical, visual, and aesthetic communication tools. Tools are necessary now more than ever to understand, interpret, and critically respond to the pressing urban issues facing downtown San Diego. Drawing upon practices in video, photography, architecture, aquaculture, and urban farming, each week long track at The Periscope Project will connect teaching agents with student inquiry to produce projects of social signifcance culminating in a public exhibition.

In an effort to maintain small class sizes and encourage a meaningful environment for creative exchange, each lab will consist of up to 10 youth per session. The goal of each lab will be to produce one analytically engaging, as well as collective, artist project response to a core regional urban issue.


On August 16, 2012 a reception and exhibition showcasing youth works was held at The Periscope Project.

Year
2012

AudienceSan Diego high school youth impacted by gentrification and homelessness

RoleCo-Initiator
Lead Organizer
Instructor
Development 





Program Session I: Representing Urban Issues – documenting the city and framing contentious issues

How much vacant space is there in East Village, and most importantly, why is it vacant?

These questions will motivate a weeklong exploration of the prevailing economic, social, and cultural factors driving land-use in the East Village. Utilizing photography and videography, students will have the opportunity to interview local planners, policy-makers, organizations, and gain valuable insights into artistic production with Periscope Teaching Agent Andrea Ngan. This session will produce a mixed-media installation representing a multifaceted understanding of the economic and bureaucratic mechanisms inherent in urban development. Technically, the session will expose students to fundamental photography and video-making skills, but more poetically students will learn to make work in the form of installations, narratives, and documentaries.







Program Session II: Drawings from the “City” – sketching the city and its many meanings

Can we record the city, and most importantly, can we read its symbols?

These questions will serve as a point of departure for introducing students to varying drawing practices ranging from visual note taking to individual expression. Drawing exercises, such as feld sketching will be used as a means for critically relating, communicating, and archiving each student’s personally subjective relationship to the city. Students will be prompted with anecdotal typologies by Periscope Teaching Agent James Enos, and presented the task of recording, understanding, and responding towards the built / un-built world. Technically, the track will practice the underlying principles of drawing and techniques of rapid visualization, concept design, and architectural ideation. However, perhaps more sensitively, students will gain exposure to visual strategies and formal preferences of form generation, record, and personal spatial analysis.







Program Session III: Introduction to Public Logic – an exploration of public amenities

Are skateboarders the only ones having fun in the city, and most importantly, whose stuff is this exactly?

Students will examine the structure of these questions and the spatial conditions alluded to by the public domain i.e. sidewalk culture, business amenities, and public parks. Working with Periscope Teaching Agent Keith Muller, students will gain awareness to idiosyncrasies in public amenities e.g. street furniture, utilities, curbs, green spaces, and borders. The track will consist of guided tours where students will learn by examining, documenting, and interpreting the urban landscape, more specifcally the intentions of public use, in mixed media. The design/build and small construction of a public sculpture project will take place and serve as a trigger for site-specifc participation. Technically, a hands-on approach to form-generation, material properties, and construction protocol will be explored. More poetically, students will be engaged with the tenants of sustainability.



Session IV: Urban Green Technologies – DIY Hydroponics, Ecosystems, and Biology

What are urban green technologies, and most importantly, how does environment play into the city?

Framed by questions such as these, students will learn how to construct small-scale, hydroponic home-garden systems built from easily sourced, recycled and low-cost materials. Periscope Teaching Agent David Kim will lead a collaborative, open laboratory where students will learn real-world application of high school Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Studies curriculum. This includes exposure to the rapidly growing feld of urban green technologies and the movement towards accessible DIY implementation. Ultimately, this workshop seeks to foster student awareness and agency in taking personal responsibility for environmental sustainability.

Background: Current US industrial food production, processing, packaging, and transport require a mean 7-10 calories of fossil fuels to output 1 calorie of food; this wide disparity is responsible for our food industry’s alarmingly heavy carbon footprint. Furthermore, truly fresh food is becoming decreasingly available and less affordable. With access to only processed and packaged foods, many urban neighborhoods throughout the world are now considered “nutritional deserts.” Urban-friendly, space-effcient, and cost-effective methods for cultivating produce on local and household scales are central in addressing these environmental, nutritional, and sociological issues.










Credits
InstructorsJames A. Enos, Director
Charles Miller
David Kim
Keith Müller
Jonathan Barth


PartnersA Reason To Survive (ARTS)
Monarch School

FunderhaudenschildGarage