UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture will host the 2021 Summer Institute on Contemporary Art (SICA), a professional development opportunity for preK–12 teachers, virtually June 21–25.
This year, SICA is organized around five themes — care, water, food, shelter, cost — that will be examined through the lens of sustainability and social action through the arts. Participants will engage with contemporary artists and their works virtually via documentaries, podcasts, gallery talks, readings and lectures. They will also create artworks that respond to the five themes.
Participants will gain knowledge about interpretation and art criticism by working directly with SICA faculty and visiting scholars to interpret contemporary works of art as means to explore approaches to meaning-making, pedagogy, curriculum and art-making inspired by contemporary art.
The Summer Institute on Contemporary Art was established in 2013 by B. Stephen Carpenter II, now dean of the College of Arts and Architecture, and Dana Carlisle Kletchka, former curator of education at the Palmer Museum of Art and now assistant professor of art museum education at Ohio State. This summer, Alex Allen, post-doctoral scholar of art education at Penn State, is co-director of SICA along with Carpenter.
Registration for 2021 SICA is free. For more information and to register, visit https://sites.psu.edu/sica/.