Medium as Message: How Materials Shape Meaning in Art

What if the key to understanding a work of art lies not in what it depicts, but in what it’s made of? This course explores artworks in which medium and message are inseparable—where artists deliberately choose materials to carry meaning.

Each session focuses on different media, from traditional materials like ink and stone to nontraditional ones like food and water, revealing how substance itself becomes a form of expression.

We’ll examine striking examples across periods and forms: a carved woodcut in which the grain evokes both body and cross, a “tree library” of sculpted books that preserve the essence of living species, and contemporary installations using melting ice or ephemeral fog to confront climate change and transience.

Moving beyond novelty, this course offers a framework for seeing how material choices shape interpretation.

Students will leave with new tools for encountering art—attuned to the powerful, and often overlooked, role of medium in making meaning.