MIT Student Artists Articles

The Architects Collaborative 1945–1995: Tracing a Diffuse Architectural Authorship. Photo: Chris Grimley.

Council for the Arts at MIT Announces Fall 2021 Grant Recipients

The Council for the Arts at MIT provides funding for arts projects with a special interest in supporting projects that engage the MIT community. The Council’s Grants Committee considers proposals for projects in the fall and spring semesters. Applications for Undergraduate Mini-Grants are accepted on a … Continued

The Tech Logo (2021)

MIT Mocha Moves hosted the Revive the Arts (RTA) Dance Showcase

MIT Mocha Moves hosted the Revive the Arts (RTA) dance showcase on Nov. 5 and featured a variety of other MIT dance groups.

Nov. 9, 2021

The Tech Logo (2021)

Family Weekend Concert: a wonderful night for music aficionados

Last Friday, MIT Wind Ensemble (MITWE), MIT Jazz Ensemble, and MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble came together in Kresge Auditorium for the first time in a year and a half to perform their annual Family Weekend Concert. The overwhelming theme was … Continued

Nov. 3, 2021

Pointe Magazine Logo (2021)

5 Ways Ballet Prepared Me for My Engineering Career

People often ask me about my ballet background because it seems like strange preparation for an engineering career. To me it’s not peculiar at all. Ballet taught me many of the skills I use to excel in both the classroom … Continued

September 10, 2021

Nina Young, image courtesy EMPAC

Composer Nina C. Young’s Sonic Architectures

Composer Nina C. Young is equally at ease drawing from Renaissance motets and 21st-century technology to devise her sonic architectures. When she was a senior at MIT, Nina C. Young ’07 took Michael (1949) and Sonja Koerner Music Composition Professor … Continued

The "first contact" moment of the performance. Pease NH, May 20, 2021. Photo courtesy of Steve Boxall/Zero-G.

Rethinking Our First Encounters in Space

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

Chalk of the Day, Courtesy of Jessie Wang '21 and Jessica Xu '21.

Inspiring Aspiring Artists: CAMIT Undergraduate Mini-Grants

MIT students have continued to perform, compose, draw, dance, build, and make in every imaginable way throughout this past year.

Image: Courtesy of Nancy Valladares, SMACT ’20.

Council for the Arts at MIT Supports Graduate Student Artistic Research

Graduate students and alumni discuss their work at the Council’s Annual Meeting

Rendering of "Lodgers: Serendipity in the Wilderness" by Zhicheng Xu and Mengqi Moon He.

Council for the Arts at MIT Announces Spring 2021 Grant Recipients

The Council for the Arts at MIT provides funding for arts projects with a special interest in supporting projects that engage the MIT community. The Council’s Grants Committee considers proposals for projects in the fall and spring semesters. Applications for Undergraduate Mini-Grants are accepted on a … Continued

Po-Hao Chi, Virtual Confinement. Courtesy of the artist.

The 2021 Schnitzer Prize: Art For and From Our World

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

Image: 2021 Sudler Prize recipient Sebastian Franjou. Credit: Amelia Paine.

Sebastian Franjou ’21: Louis Sudler Prize Winner

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

Image: Kevin Costello. Courtesy of the artist.

Thriving in the Arts at MIT: The 2021 Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards

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

Anj Fayemi, ’20 Chemical Engineering, member of Rivet team, winner of the 2021 $15K Creative Arts Competition, accepting prize.

Making the Arts Sustainable: The $15K Creative Arts Competition

There are myriad opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs at MIT—dozens of incubators and accelerators designed to help shepherd the next big thing in robotics or biotech or quantum computing from blackboard to business.  Students wishing to launch a venture in the … Continued

Trapped, credit Elaheh Ahmadi.

Opening a Trapped Door

Photography gives graduate student Elaheh Ahmadi a new means of connection, self-expression Taking 4.341 Introduction to Photography and Related Media at MIT was a life-changing experience for Elaheh Ahmadi SB ’20, MEng ’21. It was the fall of 2019, and … Continued

Thomas Heatherwick. Credit: Elena Heatherwick.

Thomas Heatherwick, 2020 Winner of the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts

Finding Connection in Isolation Through Design How can we be together? This is the question that designer Thomas Heatherwick asks. The winner of the 2020 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT, renowned for his large-scale public projects around the … Continued

2020 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts First Place Winner Nicole L'Huillier's Delira, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

Council for the Arts at MIT Announces IAP 2021 Arts Funding Opportunities for Undergrads and Student Groups

The Council for the Arts at MIT will offer two art funding opportunities for IAP 2021 focused on undergraduates and student groups.  Special IAP Arts Funding for Undergraduates and Student Groups This one-time special funding opportunity will provide up to … Continued

Screenshot of Misalignments online exhibition. Credit: Dalma Földesi and Jung In Seo.

Misalignments

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

2020 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts First Place Winner Nicole L'Huillier's Delira, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

The 2020 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts

Visit the online exhibition of work by the 2020 recipients of the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts. Students Plumb Barriers of Sound, Space, and Sight at MIT Each year, the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize highlights student … Continued

Image: Margaret Kosten. Courtesy of the artist.

Making Arts Matter: The 2020 Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Award

MIT is host to a vibrant and delightfully diverse art scene. Much of the credit goes to the students who participate in the arts on campus. Scores of students work each year in seen and unseen roles, promoting and sustaining … Continued

Image: Sudler Award recipient Venkatesh Sivaraman. Courtesy of the artist.

At Home in Music: 2020 Louis Sudler Prize Winner Venkatesh Sivaraman

Venkatesh Sivaraman ’20 On March 30, 2020 at 5p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Venkatesh Sivaraman ’20 (Computational Biology) sat down at the five-foot Yamaha grand piano in his family’s Columbus, Ohio home and launched into the first notes of Alexander Scriabin’s … Continued

Ken Urban. Credit Kevin Thomas Garcia.

Reflections on a now virtual Playwrights Lab Workshop

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

Toward a Transhumanist Future: Miriam Simun, Media Lab ’18

The video opens under an expanse of murky green water, as two swimmers clasp each other and slowly pinwheel in place to the somber notes of a piano sonata. A voiceover says, “The world record for human breath-hold underwater is … Continued

Maria Esteban Casanas, winner of the 2020 $15K Creative Arts Competition.

The Entrepreneurship of Art: MIT’s 2020 15k Arts Competition

Eight years ago, MIT launched a novel competition designed to foster arts-focused startups at the Institute. “There were a number of arts prizes awarded at semester’s or year’s end,” says Leila W. Kinney, Executive Director of Arts Initiatives at MIT. … Continued

Image: Dance Revelasian at the Taoli World Boston Regional Competition. November 2019. Credit: Benjamin Cheung Photography.

The Joy of Dance at MIT

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

Image: Mia Heavener. Courtesy of the artist.

A Writer’s Voyage: Mia Heavener, MIT Course 1, ’00

“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