New and Noteworthy: Queer Histories, Print Culture, and Land-Based Practice Among 2025–26 Course Highlights at the School of Art

The School of Art at the University of Manitoba continues to expand its offerings with a dynamic lineup of new and returning courses for Fall 2025 and Winter 2026. Designed to support experimentation, critical inquiry, and interdisciplinary practice, these highlights invite students to explore land-based artmaking, performance, print culture, queer visual histories, and more.

While many of these courses are tailored for School of Art students, one standout this year is FA 1212: Art, Technology, and Culture of Video Games. Open to all UM students with no prerequisites, this new course bridges the arts, sciences, and humanities through the study of video games as cultural and creative forms. It’s a unique opportunity for students across faculties—especially U1, Arts, and Science—to explore visual culture in an accessible and engaging way.

Fall 2025 Highlights

FAAH 3150: Nineteenth-Century European Art: Cultural Transformations and Artistic Movements
Instructor: Dr. Stephen Borys
A course examining the major artistic movements of nineteenth-century Europe, from Romanticism and Realism to Impressionism. Students will explore how artists responded to industrialization, urban growth, and political upheaval, while developing critical insights into how painting and sculpture shaped and reflected cultural change.

FAAH 3250: Queer Art
Instructor: Dr. Braden Scott
A course considering how sexual and gender diversity is expressed, encoded, or obscured in visual culture. Students will trace queer art histories across time and geography, exploring questions of visibility, identity, and representation.

FAAH 4070: Bauhaus-Canada
Instructor: Dr. Oliver Botar
Examining the influence of the Bauhaus in Canadian contexts, this seminar investigates intersections of modernism, pedagogy, and artistic innovation.

FAAH 4082: Seminar in Art Historiography
Instructor: Dr. David Foster
An advanced seminar focusing on the debates, methodologies, and historiographies that shape the field of art history.

STDO 2680: Introduction to Art Therapy
Instructor: Tanissa Martindale
This course introduces students to the principles and practices of art therapy, exploring how creative processes can support healing and well-being.

STDO 2680: Ceramic Tiles
Instructor: Grace Nickel
Students will experiment with tile-based ceramic design, learning technical processes while exploring historical and contemporary approaches.

STDO 3680: With the Land: Artists Outside
Instructor: Sarah Ciurysek
A land-based studio at FortWhyte Alive, where students engage directly with seasonal changes through observation, movement, and creative process.

STDO 3680: Sketching Time
Instructor: Matthis Grunsky
Students explore drawing as a practice of attention and reflection, maintaining daily sketchbooks and emphasizing the slow, observational qualities of mark-making.

STDO 3680: Experiments with Video Projection
Instructor: Freya Olafson
A hands-on course in expanded video practices, including projection mapping, performance integration, and site-specific installation.

STDO 3682: The Figure in Drawing and Painting
Instructor: Mark Neufeld
This course explores figuration through studio practice and critical readings, examining both historical and contemporary approaches to representing the body.

STDO 3684: Photography and Materiality
Instructor: Dominique Rey
A hybrid studio that investigates photography as both image and object, combining digital and analog processes with sculpture, painting, and performance.

STDO 3686: Small Scale Sculpture
Instructor: Erika Dueck
Students create intimate sculptural works, exploring the possibilities of materials, scale, and space.

Winter 2026 Highlights

FA 1212: Art, Technology, and Culture of Video Games
Instructor: TBA
Students analyze video games as artistic, narrative, and cultural forms. Topics include design, interactivity, and visual culture in contemporary media. Open to all UM students with no prerequisites—ideal for U1, Arts, and Science.

FAAH 3160: Mid-Century Modernist Abstraction
Instructor: Dr. Shepherd Steiner
This seminar focuses on the art and ideas that shaped abstraction in the mid-20th century, from its formal innovations to its global influences.

FAAH 3250 / STDO 3674: Manitoba Print History
Instructors: Dr. Oliver Botar and Suzie Smith
A combined seminar and studio exploring Winnipeg’s influence on Canadian printmaking. Students will study Indigenous and activist print histories alongside hands-on practice in screen printing, woodcut, and collagraph techniques.
Note: These courses are corequisites and must be taken together.

FAAH 4070: Building and Making Things from the Earth
Instructor: Dr. Braden Scott
Exploring sustainability, symbolism, and material sourcing in art and architecture, this course investigates global histories of extraction and production.

FAAH 4090: Indigenous Feminisms
Instructor: Dr. Suzanne McLeod
This seminar explores how First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women artists address gendered violence, settler colonialism, and cultural resurgence through diverse media.

STDO 3672: Design and Printmaking
Instructor: Leigh Bridges
A studio course at the intersection of graphic design and printmaking. Students will create posters, zines, and card decks, exploring collaborative and experimental strategies.

STDO 3680: Intermediate Performance Art
Instructor: Lori Blondeau
Students expand on foundational practices in performance, working through solo and collaborative projects that engage gesture, time, and audience.

STDO 3680: Puppets in Animation or Performance
Instructor: Derek Brueckner
This course introduces the design and creation of puppets and miniature sets for stop-motion or live performance, with an emphasis on narrative and metaphor.

STDO 3680: Natural Dyes, Fibres, and Fabrics
Instructor: Katherine Boyer
Explores sustainable and culturally rooted practices of dyeing and fibre construction, foregrounding material-based research.

STDO 3682: On the Surface
Instructor: M.E. Sparks
A topics course examining approaches to surface in drawing and painting, from experimental mark-making to conceptual layering.

These offerings reaffirm the School of Art’s commitment to critical inquiry, diverse perspectives, and innovative approaches to artmaking—while opening new doors for students across the university to join the conversation.

For more information or to view the full list of courses, visit Aurora: aurora-registration.umanitoba.ca/StudentRegistrationSsb/ssb/registration

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