Semester Studio
September 21-December 5, 2025
Contingent Bodies
A new studio for creative exploration across a broad range of disciplines
David Gersten leads an intensive eleven-week studio program rooted in his seminal approach to education as an art form in itself, where our studios become open sites of inquiry, where listening, making and perception converge to form a practice of deep attention and transformation.
/about
The Chinese idiom 如影随形 (“as the shadow follows the form”) names shadow as inseparable from the world. Taoist philosophy expands this view – Zhuang Zi describes shadows as contingent beings existing only in relation to others – resembling, but never identical. As Plato writes, they depart from truth.
Yet, in this distance, shadows open possibilities – the freedom to reflect the world without replicating it, and generate new truths that invite reflection and contemplation.
This exhibition embraces shadow as performance, as image, as relation. A brush passed from one hand to another, a book reflecting its surroundings, a poem emerging at the edge of light and dark – all affirming shadow as both trace and divergence, merging, dissolving, and expanding our understanding of the world.
Opening Events
September 27
Opening: 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM Behind the house
Performance: 2:00 PM Behind the house
Tea Ceremony: 4:00 PM Platform on the hill
Poetry Reading: 8:00 PM Barn
/documents
Downloadable Press Release
Downloadable Press Release
/artists
The Chinese idiom 如影随形 (“as the shadow follows the form”) names shadow as inseparable from the world. Taoist philosophy expands this view – Zhuang Zi describes shadows as contingent beings existing only in relation to others – resembling, but never identical. As Plato writes, they depart from truth.
Yet, in this distance, shadows open possibilities – the freedom to reflect the world without replicating it, and generate new truths that invite reflection and contemplation.
This exhibition embraces shadow as performance, as image, as relation. A brush passed from one hand to another, a book reflecting its surroundings, a poem emerging at the edge of light and dark – all affirming shadow as both trace and divergence, merging, dissolving, and expanding our understanding of the world.
Opening Events
September 27
Opening: 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM Behind the house
Performance: 2:00 PM Behind the house
Tea Ceremony: 4:00 PM Platform on the hill
Poetry Reading: 8:00 PM Barn
Program Director
David Gersten
David Gersten is an internationally recognized artist, architect, writer, and educator based in New York City. He was Distinguished Professor and Director of Interdisciplinary Learning at The Cooper Union, where he taught from 1991-2025 and served as Associate Dean and Acting Dean. He is the Founding Director and President of Arts Letters and Numbers, a nonprofit that supports creative exchange across architecture, design, fine arts, theater, film, music, crafts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Gersten has taught at institutions worldwide, including the Cooper Union, Aarhus School of Architecture, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He collaborates with educational and cultural institutions, as well as international organizations including UNICEF, the United Nations Academic Impact division, Education Reimagined and serves on the Board of Directors of Big Picture Learning.
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/drawings
/workshops
/lectures & conversations
David Gersten: Two Talks on John Hejduk (Hejduk, Hamlet and the Ghost Promise)
David Gersten
Spatial Literacy: where do we know what we know?
TEDxCooper Union
David Gersten presents New York City, a 5000 Year History
David Gersten at The Great Hall
/in a nutshell
Frequency
3 Days/Week (Tue, Wed, Thu)
Positions
10+ seats & (scholarships available)
Contact
