EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Leah Talatinian
Senior Officer for Marketing and Communications
1. Trashion Show, Julia Chatterjee, 2. When The Coyote Stole The Fire, Stuti Khandwala, 3. 116 x 31, Karyn Nakamura, 4. Monologue, Montserrat Garza Julia Chatterjee, Montserrat “Montse” Garza, Stuti Khandwala, and Karyn Nakamura Every year, MIT students enrich their … Continued
Christopher Benton, Kwan Queenie Li, and Irmandy Wickasono Good art can be both timely and timeless. It can be rooted in a particular event or place and at the same time speak to audiences across oceans and eras and ideologies. … Continued
Student project 116 x 31 transforms an iconic building on MIT’s campus with a large-scale interactive installation It’s known on campus as “The Sponge.” But last week, undergraduate design major Karyn Nakamura transformed the iconic façade of Simmons Hall … Continued
Valerie Chen EECS ’22 is a gifted cellist at home in almost any musical genre. Her diverse and challenging repertoire ranges from Brahms and Debussy to the themes from “Game of Thrones” and Pokémon. She is also a gifted musical … Continued
In the remote desert of Nevada, MIT students design shelter for all species In a rural valley of northwestern Nevada, home to stretches of wetlands, sagebrush-grassland and dozens of natural springs, is a 3,800-acre parcel of off-grid land known … Continued
Artist and architect Emma Yimeng Zhu 朱艺蒙 is challenging us to reimagine our world. Emma Yimeng Zhu 朱艺蒙 (SMACT ’21) is fascinated by lines. By the boundaries they form, by the blurring of them, and by how we might … Continued
In a new video art piece, MIT alum Rae Yuping Hsu counters traditional narratives of colonization In late May, 20,000 feet above Pease, New Hampshire, a woman dressed as a microbe in a spacesuit inoculated with slime mold bounced around … Continued
MIT students have continued to perform, compose, draw, dance, build, and make in every imaginable way throughout this past year.
Graduate students and alumni discuss their work at the Council’s Annual Meeting
Visit the online exhibition of work by the 2021 recipients of the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts. Po-Hao Chi, Chucho Ocampo, Carolyn Tam, and Nina Lutz Artists have always found their subjects and techniques in the world where … Continued
Music, electrical engineering, and computer science Sebastian Franjou ’21 began studying classical guitar and music theory in his native France, but he chose the United States for his university education so that he could double major—ultimately choosing to pair music … Continued
Kevin Costello, Rian Flynn, Gabriel “Tony” Terrasa, and Luisa Apolaya Torres Each year, the Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards, which were created in 1979, acknowledge four undergraduate or graduate students, living groups, organizations or activities for their … Continued
In a new online project, MIT alum Nancy Valladares finds phantoms in Honduras’s horticultural past In 1932, the British botanist Dorothy Popenoe died after eating a piece of unripe ackee fruit. The fruit, which originated in West Africa, was grown … Continued
When MArch’20 graduates Dalma Földesi and Jung In Seo first started taking ceramics classes at MIT’s Student Art Association (SAA), they found a fascinatingly protean substance. Clay could be liquid or solid, heavy and dense or feather-light. Before it hardens, … Continued
This fall funding from the Council’s Grants Committee will enable MIT’s faculty, staff, and students to pursue new, innovative forms of collaboration, performance, and engagement as well as to advance artistic practices in design, film, installation, artist books, and … Continued
Going online expanded the Lab’s access to theater professionals, giving students and recent alumni a chance to learn new skills, refine their plays — and work with high-caliber actors and directors When Covid-19 forced the MIT campus to shut down … Continued
The MIT Music and Theater Arts Playwrights Lab workshop 21M.785J taught by Senior Lecturer Ken Urban provides students a space to work on the development of play scripts for the theater and the opportunity to collaborate with professional theater artists. … Continued
Nothing can stop MIT students from dancing, not even stay at home orders. Two years ago, when second-year EECS & Economics student Joy (Xingchen) Feng was deciding where to attend college, she was concerned about having artistic outlets beyond class. … Continued
“Be stubborn and ultimately believe in your writing,” advises first-time novelist Mia Heavener ’00, “especially if you are having crappy writing days.” On April 13, Heavener visited Wyn Kelley’s literature course “Reading Fiction: Voyages” to share her story of writing … Continued
Devi Lockwood was wandering down the Infinite Corridor in the Fall of 2018 when she noticed a sheaf of brochures perched on the door of a small office to her left. The brochures had information about grants awarded by the … Continued
The Arts at MIT is pleased to announce Andrea Volpe as the director of the Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT).
Guillermo Bernal, Erin Genia, Emily Toomey, and Dipo Doherty Every artist’s body of work represents their creative vision and artistic evolution. For younger artists, a portfolio also points to their future potential. Winners of the 2019 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer … Continued
Grace Yin ‘19 Grace Yin doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t play violin. “Apparently my musical career started in day care,” says Yin ‘19, an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major from Cambridge, Massachusetts. An early childhood experience steered … Continued
Undergraduates Amalia Lee and Garrett Souza, and Graduate Students Pip Mothersill and Gary Zhexi Zhang Students make myriad contributions at MIT through art. Some set a new level of excellence with their superior talent, dedicated work ethic, and exemplary performance … Continued
The international artist attributes his diverse career to MIT’s open culture. Jorge Otero-Pailos ’02 attributes his unique artistic vision to his experience at MIT, where he earned a PhD in History and Theory of Architecture at the MIT School of … Continued
