critique
noun
a detailed analysis and assessment of something
verb
evaluate in a detailed and analytical way.
In the visual arts, critique is a conversation — an exchange that invites us to explore an artwork’s content, context, process, and form. It is a vital part of creative development and a skill that must be learned and practiced, just like any other. At its best, critique helps us see more clearly, think more expansively, and grow in our practice. But it can also be intense, vulnerable, and charged with dynamics that require care and awareness.
Throughout this workbook, the words critique and feedback are used interchangeably, with the understanding that both terms point to moments of inquiry, dialogue, and reflection. Whether we are artists, scholars, teachers, students, or practitioners in any discipline our ability to give and receive feedback is central to how we learn in community.
Critique is a place ripe for learning. It’s where artists expose their intentions, processes, and values, and where they hear — often for the first time — what their work is doing from the perspective of others. In critique, we translate our encounters with an artwork into conversation. We ask. We listen. We make meaning together. And yet, critiques that fail to acknowledge the hierarchies present in the room — inherited through art histories, educational institutions, and interpersonal dynamics — risk reproducing harm instead of fostering insight. That’s why this workbook takes an inclusive, trauma-informed approach to critique — one that experiments with equitable forms, honors diverse learning and teaching styles, and invites reflection to strengthen our capacity to take creative risks.
This workbook is for students, faculty, and practitioners of all kinds. It is designed to playfully and insightfully strengthen your skills in giving and receiving feedback. It’s also a call to action: to examine how our personal biases, cultural frameworks, and institutional structures shape the ways we respond to creative work. Throughout the pages that follow, you’ll find exercises intended to deepen your critique practice. These exercises address important questions such as:
How do we offer more than technical or emotive feedback for work that deals with complex or uncomfortable content?
How do we ensure feedback remains thoughtful and individualized, even across multiple critiques in a single session?
How do we give and receive feedback when we’re feeling vulnerable?
How do we remain aware of our biases, and prevent them from limiting the potential of a conversation?
How might we explore critique to better understand group dynamics?
The Critique Repository: Volume 1 emerges from the collaborative work of students and faculty in the Patterns and Feedback: Trauma-Informed Critique research group through the Center for Collaborative Research, Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts at Coastal Carolina University. It includes insights gathered through surveys, conversations, weekly meetings, and a university-wide working group titled Retooling Critique, led by artist-scholars Billie Lee and Judith Leemann. The workbook also draws on the ongoing development of my personal trauma-informed critique repository — a living archive of adaptable methods designed by myself and others to celebrate multiplicity, resist re-traumatization, and respond to the urgent pedagogical needs of our time. Many of the exercises in this workbook are inspired by the important work of others, adapted to fit the needs of our community. Please share and adapt exercises to your critique spaces. Critique is never just about the work on the wall, pedestal, or page — it’s also about the room we are in, the questions we ask, and the ways we choose to listen. May this volume help cultivate critique as a site of care, creativity, and shared inquiry.
— Sandrine Schaefer
with student researchers: Egypt Anderson, Taylor Houston, Chris Mayer and Gabriella Seebode