This class will function as a sort of workshop for thinking through contemporary ethical questions around such things as rights and access to public spaces and institutions, ownership of images and representation, funding and adjudicating structures within art institutions; diversity and accessibility in representation and production, censorship, etc. We will work at developing a language and a skill for critical evaluation of ethical questions with the expressed goal of building this lens into our production, participation and viewership as artists. This course will approach the topic of ethics as a dynamic practice that demands constant engagement and re-evaluation both inside and out of the studio. This begins with the recognition that while work may be made in private, the exhibition, reception and sale of work is fundamentally a public act that necessitates a separation of intention from outcome, and a fluency in interpretation and contextualization alongside the development of craft. Subjects such as the current uprisings against racial, gender and sexual injustice; the COVID-19 pandemic; historical imperatives in representation; codes of ethics; political and artist manifestos; copyright laws and legal cases brought by and against artists; and historical instances of censorship, defacement and boycott of art works and monuments will be treated as test-cases that reveal or point to the underlying values and assumptions of their producers.