Arts Architecture

YORK UNIVERSITY seeks faculty for ECOLOGICAL DESIGN FOR PERFORMANCE

Applications are invited for a full-time tenure-track position in Ecological Design for Performance, at the rank of Assistant Professor, with graduate and undergraduate teaching responsibilities, effective July 1, 2012. In addition to teaching and research responsibilities, and service at the departmental, Faculty and University levels, the appointment will be key in the direction and development of the new Theatre MFA in Design for Performance.

York’s Department of Theatre has an undergraduate program with over 400 majors pursuing BFA or BA degrees in performance, devised theatre, theatre studies, playwriting, production and design. There is also a Graduate Program with a PhD and MA in Theatre Studies and an MFA in Acting, Directing, and Design. The Department has the only MFA in Acting in Canada and is at the forefront of developing sustainability in design for performance at the graduate level.

The Faculty of Fine Arts, and especially the Department of Theatre, have been developing an active interest in ecological sustainability and, in doing so, have embraced the mandate of York University’s Sustainability Policy: “York will strive to be at the forefront of sustainability research and education, and will use its capacity and expertise to promote sustainability within and beyond the University, with its alumni, governments and the surrounding communities.” The position in Ecological Design for Performance will support the continued exploration and development of sustainability in design, primarily at the MFA level, and potentially in conjunction with Film, Dance, Visual Arts, Architecture, Environmental Studies, and Engineering.

Applicants must be mid-career designers for performance who have demonstrated a commitment to sustainability in their work. Strong consideration will be given to applicants whose work challenges the borders of art within the construct of sustainability; this may include the research and exploration of technological innovation. Good interpersonal communication and ability to work closely with students, colleagues and other departments are required, as is demonstrated excellence or promise of excellence in scholarly and creative research and teaching. Preferred candidates will have a terminal degree in an appropriate discipline, demonstrated professional recognition, teaching experience at the post-secondary level, and strong connections with the theatre and industrial communities.

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. The successful candidate should be suitable for prompt appointment to the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

A letter of application with an up-to-date curriculum vitae, a statement of research, professional and teaching interests and experience, a DVD or online examples of creative work, and the names and contact information of three referees should be sent to: Search Committee, c/o Mary Pecchia, Room 320 Department of Theatre, Centre for Film and Theatre, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3J 1P3; Tel: 416-736-2100 ext 66266;  Fax 416-736-5785.  Email: mpecchia@yorku.ca

York University is an Affirmative Action Employer. The Affirmative Action Program can be found on York’s website at www.yorku.ca/acadjobs or a copy can be obtained by calling the affirmative action office at 416.736.5713. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority.

Deadline for applications: Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Geologic City

New Yorkers co-exist intimately with the traces of powerful geo forces. Apartments made of red sandstone from the Triassic (245-208 million years ago) both shelter us and populate our visual space. Rockefeller Center elevates and displays limestone from the Mississippian Period. The iron of the Manhattan Bridge stands as a message from Pre-Cambrian times.

Geologic City: a field guide to the GeoArchitecture of New York will visualize the reality that modern life and geologic time are deeply intertwined. With the field guide in hand, residents and visitors will be able to interact with familiar, even iconic New York architecture and infrastructure in an unexpected way: by sensing for themselves the forces of deep time that give form and materiality to the built environment of the City.

During 2010-11, we will research geologic materials of New York’s architecture and infrastructure and design the printed field guide and a supporting website. The project will illustrate several themes: geologic time is neither inert nor inaccessible; geologic time has composed—and continues to compose—the materials that make New York City; through design, humans enculturate those materials as the city’s architecture and infrastructure.

The City’s architecture and infrastructure depends upon extractions of geologic materials that took millennia to form. Yet, we have virtually no cultural awareness of this reality. Some people argue that this is because humans are cognitively incapable of imagining deep time. We disagree. With this field guide to New York’s geoarchitecture, we offer a speculative tool that humans can use to project their imaginations into deep time as they move through the City. We believe that as works made in response to geologic time become more common, human capacities to design, imagine, and live in relation to deep time will expand.

Geologic City is funded in part by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, Architecture Planning & Design Program, 2011.
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Geologic City: a field guide to the GeoArchitecture of New York is a project of Friends of the Pleistocene (FOP). An illustrated project description can be viewed here.

Project updatese will be posted at fopnews.wordpress.com

For more information contact: Jamie Kruse and Elizabeth Ellsworth at smudgestudio@gmail.com