The School of Making Thinking

The School of Making Thinking (SMT) is simultaneously an artist/thinker residency program, an experimental college, and a nomadic investigation in intentional living. Our mission is to create a unique environment where participants are able to develop a creative practice that challenges disciplinary conventions of art-making, thinking and living.

Our program asks: How does art deepen thought and provoke questioning? How is thinking enacted through creative mediums? And how can an environment be structured (or resist structuring) in such a way that these questions can not only be asked, but be lived as well?

SMT is a 501c3 non-profit organization run by an eclectic group of philosophers, poets, writers and performers. Every summer we rent property in The Catskills- a rural and mountainous region a few hours from New York City. We select qualified artists and thinkers (some of which are returning from previous summers) to attend various 2-3 week sessions. These residents include: botanists, dancers, playwrights, painters, poets, philosophers, fiction writers, audio documentarians, filmmakers, performance artists, and PhD candidates from English and American Studies departments.

The majority of one’s day is spent delving into one’s own creative project or practice. Additionally, our day revolves around a large variety of activities. We have structured activities: cleaning, cooking, workshops, field trips and classes. We have unstructured activities: spontaneous artistic rituals, walks into the woods, readings, improvised music-makings. We make our program extremely affordable for those who attend.

In the Fall of 2013 SMT will lauch a Brooklyn-based continuiing education program that will feature a handful of interdisciplinary classes taught with radical pedagogy.