The Alternative Art School

What if publishing wasn’t documentation of the work, but the work itself?

In Off-Times, you’ll explore the artist newspaper as a space for experimentation, collaboration, and exchange. You’ll study artist publications across history and dig into how sequencing, text, image, typography, and editorial decisions shape meaning, then put it into practice by contributing to Off-Times, TAAS’s own printed community newspaper.

Professionally printed and distributed internationally, contributors are encouraged to activate the work locally: pop-up exhibitions, readings, performances, and gatherings hosted with museums, galleries, artist-run spaces, universities, and bookstores.

Open to artists in any discipline: writing, photography, sculpture, painting, performance, or research.

Eden (amber) Imrie

✻ We just dropped the newest episode of Counterproductive, with  renowned performance and social practice artist Tania Bruguera. In her conversation with Nato, she talks about her life and work—the intersections of art, activism, and political resistance, as well as her experiences in Cuba, Europe, the United States and beyond!

✻ Link in bio to watch/listen.

✺ We’re so grateful to Erika Blumenfeld, our most recent visiting artist, for her inspiring lecture.

Driven by a curiosity for where our phenomenological world meets the human experiences of wonder and meaning, Erika’s research-based practice investigates how wonder itself can cultivate deep empathy for the natural world. Her work seamlessly bridges artistic expression and scientific inquiry, partnering with institutions like NASA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the McDonald Observatory.
A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, her profound work has been exhibited at institutions worldwide, including the Tate Modern. Whether she’s serving as Science-PI leading NASA’s Astromaterials 3D project or capturing polar light in Antarctica, Erika invites us to rethink how we observe, archive, and relate to the cosmos.

“I tend to work fluidly across disciplines, focusing on the many intersections between art, science, nature, and culture.”

✻ Talk time: 60min with Q+A
The recording is available to TAAS members.

We just wrapped the inaugural Ozark Storytelling Residency, a partnership between TAAS and Mount Sequoyah Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Artists came from as far as Johannesburg, South Africa to spend two weeks in deep studio time, field trips, and workshops exploring what storytelling means when it’s rooted in a specific place.

The residency wrapped with a free public showcase on July 4th, with work scattered across the mountain — installations in trees, sound pieces, textile work pulled from the textures of the land itself.

KUAF Public Radio stopped by to cover it. You can tune in to hear from the artists themselves on what two weeks of in-person collaboration can do.

✺ We’re honored to welcome Cheryl Derricotte as a TAAS Advisor.

A sculptor and visual artist working primarily in glass, Cheryl’s practice explores identity, memory, and place. She created Freedom’s Threshold, the first glass monument to Harriet Tubman, and her work is held in the permanent collections of the de Youngy Museum, the Museum of Glass, and more. She’s also a 2025 Howard Foundation Fellow and a licensed city planner.

We’re excited for the insight, generosity, and perspective Cheryl brings as we continue building the next chapter of TAAS. ♡

✺ We’re honored to welcome Sasha Stiles as a TAAS Advisor.

Sasha is a first-generation Kalmyk-American poet and language artist whose work reimagines poetry as both an ancient technology and a living computational medium. Her practice has earned the Prix Ars Electronica and Lumen Prize, with exhibitions at MoMA and Art Basel, and recognition from The New York Times, Poets & Writers, and Artforum.

We’re grateful to have Sasha’s vision helping guide TAAS as we imagine what’s next! ♡

✺ We’re honored to welcome Cheryl Derricotte as a TAAS Advisor.

A sculptor and visual artist working primarily in glass, Cheryl’s practice explores identity, memory, and place. She created Freedom’s Threshold, the first glass monument to Harriet Tubman, and her work is held in the permanent collections of the de Young Museum, the Museum of Glass, and more. She’s also a 2025 Howard Foundation Fellow and a licensed city planner.

We’re excited for the insight, generosity, and perspective Cheryl brings as we continue building the next chapter of TAAS. ♡

Keep your art practice moving in August, with inspiring artist/curator lectures, studio visits, group crits, and shared resources.

You definitely won’t want to miss the world-renowned artist Trevor Paglen on August 26.

✺ If you’re not already a TAAS member, enroll by August 15 to join the Fall Cohort.
🔗 https://www.thealternativeartschool.com/membership

Introducing TAAS's highest touch program available, Member Pro--a year-long program for artists who are ready for a full arc of study, research, making, and public presentation with world-class instructors. Learn more: https://www.thealternativeartschool.com/membership