María Magdalena Campos-Pons combines and crosses diverse artistic practices, including photography, painting, sculpture, film, video, and performance. Her work addresses issues of history, memory, gender, and religion; it investigates how each one of these themes informs identity formation.
Senior VA Concentrators, please join VA faculty, staff, and Department Chair Leslie Bostrom for lunch on the terrace! This is just a check-in to see how everyone is doing at the start of the new semester and to talk about your upcoming Senior Thesis Capstone Exhibition/Commencement requirements. Check your email for the invite and please RSVP!
The Department of Visual Art is hosting 4 nights of figure model drawing sessions at the List Art Building. This opportunity is open to all currently enrolled VISA students. From 8pm-10pm on every other Wednesday beginning Wed. Oct 6 until Wed. Nov 17, students will have the opportunity to join a group of peers for an evening of figure drawing. Space is limited.
Teresita Fernández (b. Miami, 1968; lives in Brooklyn, NY) creates work that is characterized by self-reflection and conceptual wayfinding. Her immersive, monumental works are inspired by a radical rethinking of landscape informed by diverse historical and cultural references. Often using images from the natural world, Fernández’s work emphasizes what she refers to as stacked landscapes, or the overlapping and often omitted connections between places and people.
Processing to Thrive is a support group for currently enrolled Brown students of color (undergraduate, graduate, and medical students) and is aimed at providing students of color an opportunity to be in community with each other, and to discuss the complex challenges they face within the college environment. The focus of Processing to Thrive is on creating a safe space for students of color to hold space for each other, and to discuss a variety of topics relevant to identity and experience. Topics in the group may vary based on the preference and needs of attendees.
The VA Offices will be closed Monday, July 5th and resume regular hours on Tuesday, July 6th. There will be no Lab Monitor Hours on Sunday, July 4th, Monday, July 5th, and Tuesday, July 6th. Lab Monitor Hours will resume Wednesday, July 7th.
If you are enrolled in a VISA course which supplies a course kit (materials to complete coursework), you can pick up your art supply kits from the Brown Bookstore beginning Wednesday, May 26th through Friday, June 18th. If you do not pick up your department-supplied kits during this window, you may be asked to purchase the items out-of-pocket to complete coursework.
If you are enrolled in a VISA course which supplies a course kit (materials to complete coursework), you can pick up your art supply kits from the Brown Bookstore beginning Wednesday, May 26th through Friday, June 25th. If you do not pick up your department-supplied kits during this window, you may be asked to purchase the items out-of-pocket to complete coursework.
Please join us for a virtual celebration for the Class of 2021 Senior Visual Art Concentrators! This celebration for the Class of '21 Visual Art Concentrators will feature special performances by VA alumni, a toast from Leslie Bostrom, and a message from the Ann Belsky Moranis Award recipient Ceyhun Firat '21. Seniors will receive a Zoom link directly from the Department.
Fall '21 Leave Request
Currently enrolled students who are expected to enroll this Fall '21 but would rather be on a personal leave should file a leave request in the ASK portal (under "Student Petitions") by May 1, 2021; speaking with an academic advising dean is part of the process.
Pottery has proven to be a critical archaeological resource due to its widespread use and accessibility throughout time. Sometimes archaeologists find whole pots during their excavations, but more often than not they encounter broken pieces called sherds. This exhibit looks at archaeologists’ experiences with sherds and what these seemingly insignificant pieces of pottery can tell us about the past. Curated by Jinette Jimenez ’21 for the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.
The Department of Visual Art is currently hiring students in the role of Studio Safety Monitor for the Summer 2021 semester. This is an in-person, onsite position. Positions are available in the following studios: Painting Studio and Darkroom. Apply via Workday. (Log on to Workday, use the search term "Find Student Jobs" and look for the listing "Dept. of Visual Art | Studio Safety Monitor (Onsite)".
The Department of Visual Art welcomes Junior VISA Concentrators to apply to the Honors Program for the 2021-2022 academic year. The details of the program are outlined on our website here. Once you are ready to apply, follow this link to the application (sign in with your Brown username and password). If you have any questions, please meet with your advisor, or contact Olanda Estrada or Leslie Bostrom.
Vanessa German is a visual and performance artist based in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Homewood. Homewood is the community that is the driving force behind German’s powerful performance work, and whose cast-off relics form the language of her copiously embellished sculptures. As a citizen artist, German explores the power of art and love as a transformative force in the dynamic cultural ecosystem of communities and neighborhoods. She is the founder of Love Front Porch and the ARThouse, a community arts initiative for the children of Homewood.
The Department of Visual Art is looking to our student body to elect two VA Concentrators to join Sylvia Atwood '22 as DUGs for the 2021-2022 academic year. VA DUGs are chosen each year to help students connect with one another, with faculty, and with alumni. VA DUGs participate in concentration fairs, provide a unique perspective to inquiries from prospective students, organize the open studio and other social events (online and in-person), and assist with an annual juried student art exhibition.
This year's panelists are Dara Kwayera Imani Bayer ’08, Sofie Ramos ’13, Scott Snibbe ’91, and Kah Yangni ’14. The discussion and Q&A will be moderated by Heather Bhandari ’97. A registration link to the event will be sent directly to all currently enrolled VISA students.
If you are enrolled in a VISA course which supplies a course kit (materials to complete coursework), Monday, March 1 is the last day you can pick items up from the Brown Bookstore.
he Department of Visual Art welcomes Junior VISA Concentrators to apply to the Honors Program for the 2021-2022 academic year. The details of the program are outlined on our website here. Once you are ready to apply, follow this link to the application (sign in with your Brown username and password). The deadline to apply for '22 Honors is Thursday, April 1 at 5pm. If you have any questions, please meet with your advisor, or contact Olanda Estrada or Leslie Bostrom.
There will be no Studio Monitor Hours during the Long Weekend. Normal monitor hours will resume on Wed. Feb 17. During this break, students enrolled in hybrid courses who have swipe access may still enter the building and designated studios with their ID. Certain equipment and machinery will be off limits when there is not a monitor present. All students must leave the building by 11pm daily.
Equipment Checkout will be closed for the Spring 2021 semester except for students in select courses. Only students currently enrolled in VISA0120, VISA1510, VISA1800C, VISA1900 and certain ISP students will be able to check out designated equipment beginning February 8. Equipment Checkout will be held Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-6pm by appointment only.
Firelei Báez casts diasporic histories into an imaginative realm, re-working visual references drawn from the past to explore new possibilities for the future. With a goal to reclaim power, Báez overlays figuration, symbolic imagery, and abstract gesture onto large-scale reproductions of found maps and documents. She populates these historically-loaded representations of space with change-making creatures—whose hybrid forms incorporate folkloric and literary references, textile pattern, plantlife, and wide-ranging emblems of healing and resistance—to present fictional alternative universes. The artist will be in conversation with Leticia Alvarado, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and American Studies at Brown University. In partnership with Brown Arts Initiative.
Welcome back to another semester at Brown! Please pay attention to all signs in the building- we have worked out social distancing and traffic patterns in the List Art Building to keep you safe and yet still have some person-to-person class and critique time for our hybrid courses.
Be advised that the Department of Visual Art staff will be working remotely until Fri. Dec 18. VA Staff will not be available during Brown's Staff Winter Break from Dec 19-Jan 3. VA Staff will resume virtual availability on Mon. Jan 4.
The Brown Arts Initiative is thrilled to welcome Avery Willis Hoffman as the inaugural artistic director of the BAI! As artistic director, Hoffman will curate arts programming, including work by students, faculty and external artists and organizations, building the visibility and quality of arts programming at the University.
Card access to the List Art Building will be removed for all students after Tuesday, November 24th. Students should not come to the building during Thanksgiving recess, remote reading period, or remote exam period.
Individual awards are available to VA Concentrators to support the purchase of supplies or materials for 3D/Sculpture, installation, or performance projects. Proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis for the 2020-21 academic year
The maximum occupancy for the spray booth on the 5th floor of the List Art Building in one (1) person. If someone is using the spray booth, please wait outside the door, at least six (6) feet from the entrance. If you are unsure if someone is inside, please knock several times- it is very loud inside and the person may not hear you the first time.
Equipment Checkout and Studio Monitor Hours will be suspended on Monday, Oct 12 for Indigenous Peoples' Day. Monitor Hours will resume on Tues. Oct 13.
Are you waiting on a kits for your class and still under quite period? If so, mail services is working with students to request mail/packages that contain critical items that students need urgently such as medications, medical devices, necessary legal documentation, or similarly essential items. Please fill out the Quiet Period Critical Mail/Package Request Form.
Senior VA Concentrators! Please join Dept. of Visual Art chair Leslie Bostrom, faculty, and staff for Chat & Check In- a virtual luncheon to talk about your capstone exhibition, graduation requirements, and new policies and procedures in the department. You will receive a Zoom link from the department.
Guadalupe Maravilla is a transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer. At the age of eight, Maravilla was part of the first wave of unaccompanied, undocumented children to arrive at the United States border in the 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War
Janine Antoni is a visual artist who was born in Freeport, Bahamas in 1964. She received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is known for her unusual processes. Her body is both her tool for making and the source from which her meaning arises. Antoni’s early work transformed materials like chocolate and soap and used everyday activities like bathing, eating, and sleeping as sculptural processes.
Right now we are not sure whether we will be in-person this semester or not, but we certainly hope so! To that end we have worked out social distancing and traffic patterns in the List Art Building to keep you safe and yet still have some person-to-person class and critique time for our hybrid courses.
The artist Ayana Evans has been making grueling, yet nuanced performances using her own body to help audiences understand what black women often face. In Times Square, emptied by the pandemic, the artist Ayana Evans wears her signature catsuit.
A Beautiful Struggle: Black Feminist Futurism is an interdisciplinary contemporary art exhibition that explores the integration of Black feminist and Afrofuturist ideas. Afrofuturism is a creative and cultural genre that examines perspectives of the African diaspora based in a communal reimagining of the past - as well as envisioned futures - while considering themes of identity, escapism, magical realism, and technology.
Please help us welcome the 2020-2021 DUGs Sylvia Atwood '22, Rebecca Ho ‘21, and Tèo Obiaya '21. These students are elected each year to help their peers connect with one another, with faculty, and with alumni. VA DUGs participate in concentration fairs, give guided tours of our facilities to prospective students, and help organize concentrator events throughout the year.
The University will host Virtual Degree Conferral Ceremonies for those who have earned their Brown degrees on Sunday, May 24, 2020, at 1 p.m. Visit the Virtual Degree Ceremony website here for additional information.
Congratulations, RaMell! RaMell Ross is one of seven faculty members in the Brown community to receive an award that recognizes exceptional scholarship. Read more about it here.
Each year, the Research Achievement Awards recognize the research and scholarship of both longtime and early-career faculty members from a wide array of academic disciplines.
Brown Arts Initiative is pleased to launch BAI at Home, a new website offering online events, collaborative arts projects you can get involved with, resources for artists, live concerts, interviews from the broader arts community, and more.
Interdisciplinary artist Helina Metaferia's debut solo exhibition in Boston is a showstopper. Running at Northeastern's 360 Gallery through April, 5, "Against a Sharp White Background" features a selection of work highlighting Metaferia's primary artistic objective: asserting the black body into sites of systematic oppression and owning those spaces as a person of color.
VA Junior Concentrators, please join Department Chair Leslie Bostrom, VA faculty, and staff for the Junior Class Lunch. We will discuss what to expect from your senior year, how to apply for Honors, submitting work for the Rising Seniors summer exhibition, and academic advising.
We are so thankful for the outpouring of support we have received in honor of Wendy Edwards, Professor of Visual Art, who will retire from Brown this semester after forty years of dedicated service. A passionate supporter of arts education and an inspiring figure on College Hill, Professor Edwards will be greatly missed.