2026-27 Thompson Scholar to Design a New Art and Environmental Course (04/13/26)

HIGHLIGHTS

• Claudia O'Steen, an associate professor of fine arts in the College of Visual and Performing arts, will create "Art and Environment," a studio-based course to explore how artists and scientists conduct place-based fieldwork.
• Through research and studio practice, students will generate interdisciplinary artworks that engage with contemporary conversations in the environmental humanities.

ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA - A fine arts faculty member who proposes a new course to show the intersection of art with the environment has been selected as Winthrop University's 2026-27 Thompson Scholar.

Claudia O'Steen, an associate professor of fine arts in the College of Visual and Performing arts, will create "Art and Environment," a studio-based course to explore how artists and scientists conduct place-based fieldwork. Throughout the spring semester 2027 course, students will explore and critique the relationship between visual art, technology and the natural sciences.

Through research and studio practice, students will generate interdisciplinary artworks that engage with contemporary conversations in the environmental humanities. They will present their research findings at SOURCE 2027.

Provost Sebastian van Delden said that by pairing art students with their peers in environmentally focused disciplines, O'Steen's project fosters research-based learning, leadership development, and community engagement through creative and scholarly practice. "This initiative not only cultivates cross-disciplinary collaboration but also enhances student understanding of environmental issues through the lens of artistic inquiry and public dialogue," he said.

About the Proposal

O'Steen plans to collaborate with Anthropology Professor Brent Woodfill and additional researchers across other departments to bring together artwork and fieldwork from different disciplines at the university.

For the exhibition, she plans to pair art students with students from other environmentally focused disciplines to discuss the linkages between their artwork, fieldwork, and research, and to find ways to collaboratively display this work. The project will also build upon the STEAM movement (the addition of Art to traditional STEM disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) at Winthrop.

"This collaborative exhibition will create tangible linkages between human activity and climate change, examining how individual choices can contribute to the larger instability or stability of the system," she wrote in her application. "The goal is to change the way we conceptualize our role on this planet as symbiotically enmeshed rather than separate from and working against the natural world and each other."

Through shared insight, this course presents a way forward that suggests equitable, interdisciplinary collaboration across community, class and species.

Her students will present environmental fieldwork findings with artistic production tools, including (but not limited to) sculpture, social practice and digital media. An example would be using soil chromatography, a photographic process that indicates the chemical, physical and biological characteristics of the earth, to create painting-like images that can be analyzed by hues, patterns and textures to show the ground's vitality and health.

About O'Steen

At Winthrop, O'Steen is an interdisciplinary artist whose work combines sculpture, video, installation, writing and performance. Through her research-based practice, she examines navigation, exploration, perception and failure. She creates languages to convey distance, scale and direction, giving evidence to a process that has taken place and creates landscapes supplemented by scientific curiosity and human memory.

She received a B.F.A. from Watkins College of Art and an M.F.A. in Digital+Media at Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally at venues such as The Russian State Arctic and Antarctic Museum, Maajaam Estonia, apexart, Flux Factory, Ohio State University, Manifest Creative Research Gallery, and Atlanta Contemporary amongst others, and has been awarded residencies across the globe at Rabbit Island, Hambidge Center, Wassaic Project, Montalvo, The Arctic Circle, and The National Centre for Contemporary Art St. Petersburg, Russia.

About the Thompson Scholar Program

The Thompson Scholar program is generated through the Robert and Norma Thompson Endowment which was established during the university's first capital campaign. Over the past two decades, it has provided a $5,000 award so faculty members can work on projects that help students and the community and strengthen the university's academic, intellectual and co-curricular life.

Bob Thompson, retired vice president of Springs Industries, formerly served on Winthrop's Board of Trustees from 1992-05 and 2008-14, including a term as chair. His other civic commitments include serving as chair of the Winthrop Foundation and on the Board of Visitors. He received the College of Business and Technology's Pinnacle/Summit Award in 2011, which recognized him for his leadership and support of public and higher education. His wife, Norma, has dedicated her life to the community as a homemaker, former elementary school teacher and civic volunteer.

Excited to hear about this latest project, Bob Thompson said: "We congratulate both Professor O'Steen and Winthrop on her selection. This unique collaborative proposal will underscore, for the students and the community, how connected we all really are."

For more information, contact Judy Longshaw, news and media services manager, at 803/323-2236 or e-mail her at [email protected].