The students, whose Englishlanguage skills ranged from conversational to essentially nonexistent, spent 14 days exploring Minneapolis and creating their own daily art projects. Szyhalski, who communicated with the students through a translator, said that he wanted them to understand that “they can go anywhere and experience the world as artists. It doesn’t only have to happen here at this time and this place. It can happen anywhere, at any time.” In an effort to expand MCAD’s international study abroad programs and attract more foreign students, Szyhalski and President Coogan aim to take the China partnership even further in the coming years. Rather than simply sending a group of MCAD students overseas next summer, Szyhalski hopes to set up a more integrated exchange program. “I’d love to see ten students from MCAD working together with ten students from China for Street Lab one summer, then sending those same ten MCAD students to China where the Chinese students are the guides the next summer. It’s that type of dynamic that brings people closer to the culture and makes this program truly unique.” –Regan Smith
mural photos by Rik Sferra
Regan Smith is a freelance writer in Minneapolis and a co-founder of Paper Darts Magazine.
Richard Barlow finished a mural in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood in June 2011. The mural spans two sides of the Acme Awning building. It was funded through a Clean City Minneapolis graffiti abatement project. Danny Levar ’11 worked on the project as an intern.
FACULTY NOTES
Andy Ducett’s work (left and right) was included a group invitational exhibition at Eastern Oregon University which featured both national and international collage artists.
Dr. Kris Belden-Adams has written for the forthcoming book Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop. This catalog will accompany the October 2012 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to telling the story of altered photographs from throughout the medium’s history.
Arlene Birt ’02 was an invited speaker at the 2011 International Institute for Information Design (IIID) GreenID Conference held in Vienna. Bernard Canniffe has been invited to speak at the Design Ethos 2012 conference at the Savannah College of Art and Design examining the overlap between visual design and living. Elissa Cedarleaf-Dahl ’07, MFA, was the consultant on the Jungle Theater mural in Minneapolis during Summer 2011. She received a Valspar Paint Grant and hired MCAD students Jake Dwyer and Bill Rebholz and alum Jenn Salmon ’10 to paint the mural. Jeremy Faludi was the invited keynote speaker at Baldwin-Wallace College’s 2011 Sustainability Symposium in Cleveland. John Gaunt was a juror of drawing and pastel submissions for the 150th annual Minnesota State Fair Fine Art Exhibition. Cindy Gilbert will be appearing on PBS Kids show SciGirls. She’ll be working with a team of girls to use biomimicry concepts and tools to solve a sustainability challenge. Paula McCartney has completed her ninth artist book, titled On Thin
Ice, In a Blizzard, a subseries of her project A Field Guide to Snow and Ice. Kindra Murphy ’s book MCAD Creates: 125 Stories, co-designed with Anne Yiling Wang ’11 as part of MCAD’s 125th anniversary celebration, was chosen as an honorable mention winner in the graphics category in I.D. Magazine’s 2011 Annual Design Review. Zak Sally was an invited guest and participant at Pierre Feuille Ciseaux in France, an international comic artists experimental lab and workshop devoted to showing the value, diversity, and richness of the form. Katherine M. Turczan was awarded a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship in photography. Christina Schmid ’s first curatorial adventure, Deceptive Distance, opened last September at the College of Visual Arts. Schmid moderated a panel discussion with Patricia Briggs, Jane Blocker, and Camille Gage ’97 on opening night. Dr. Anna Tahinci co-curated the exhibition Rodin and America: Influence and Adaptation, 1876– 1936 held at Stanford University Cantor Arts Center. Additionally, Dr. Tahinci contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue titled “Rodin and His American Admirers.”
mcad / spring 2012
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