ritual reality The Jewish Museum awarded Parsons faculty member Allan Wexler the Henry J. Leir Prize for his work Gardening Sukkah. Wexler’s design reinvented Jewish rituals and ritual objects through a new conceptual framework and creative use of materials. Both an outdoor space in which to gather during the harvest festival of Sukkot and a shed holding gardening tools, Gardening Sukkah connects religious ritual with the secular process of food production.
WRIT LARGE The first Parsons-wide book fair, organized by Laura Auricchio of Parsons’ School of Art and Design History and Theory, was
Chicago 1890: The Skyscraper and the Modern City Joanna Merwood (University of Chicago Press, 2009) Chicago’s first skyscrapers are famous for reflecting the city’s modernity, but how did they represent a response to their historical context? Chicago 1890 reveals that early skyscrapers offered controversial solutions to the city’s toughest problems and fostered an urban culture that spread across the country.
held in the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center Crit Space. The fair featured recently published books written and edited by more than 40 full-time and part-time faculty members, representing each of Parsons’ five schools. Publications ranged from illustrated children’s books and limited-edition artist’s books to exhibition catalogs, reference books, textbooks, and scholarly monographs. See page 02, image 06.
POSITIVE INKING Mira Schor, painter, writer, and Fine Arts faculty member, was awarded the 2009 Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Schor received the grant for her blog project A Year of Positive Thinking, which premiered in spring 2010, after the publication of her book A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Art, Politics,
Designing w/ (School of Design Strategies, 2009) This book documents SDS’ collaborations with external partners in New York City and New Orleans during the spring of 2009. With contributions by Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Alison Mears, Cameron Tonkinwise, Eduardo Staszowski, Edwin Torres, Scott Pobiner, Victoria Marshall, Brian McGrath, Phanat Sonemangkhala, Eugene Kwak, Desiree Andrepont, Jim Osman, Ben Katchor, Lara Penin, Shana Agid, and Savitri Lopez-Negrete. http://designingwith. parsons.edu/
and Daily Life. Schor’s project was chosen from works in genres ranging from scholarly studies to self-published blogs—all characterized by a commitment to the craft of writing and the advancement of critical discourse on contemporary visual art.
NATIONAL TREASURE The Smithsonian’s CooperHewitt, National Design Museum, celebrated its tenth anniversary with the exhibition Design USA, showcasing the winners of the National Design Awards from the past decade. Among those recognized were Lucille Tenazas, the Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design; David Lewis, a principal of Lewis.Tsurumaki. Lewis and the director of the Parsons Design Workshop; and Robert Greenberg, a member of Parsons’ board of governors. The Design Awards mark
Fashion Design Course: Principles, Practice, and Techniques—A Practical Guide for Aspiring Fashion Designers Steven Faerm (Barron’s Educational Series, 2010) Fashion Design Course outlines the principles of fashion design, surveys the industry’s history, and describes today’s markets. Tutorials provide instructions for designing garments. Faerm offers aspiring fashion professionals advice on creating a portfolio and selling oneself in job interviews.
accomplishments in fields such as architecture and landscape, interior, product, fashion, and communication design.
water works David Lewis, Matthew Baird, and Eric Bungee,
architects and faculty members of the School of Constructed Environments, led teams in Rising Currents, a project sponsored by MoMA and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. Five interdisciplinary teams studied the threat posed by rising sea levels resulting from global climate change and proposed solutions, which required them to re-envision the coastline around New York Harbor and consider more ecologically sensitive types of infrastructure.
Growing Urban Habitats: Seeking a New Housing Development Model William Morrish, Susanne Schindler, and Katie Swenson (William Stout, 2009) This book presents 16 designs for affordable, sustainable housing. Case studies are from proposals for Urban Habitats, a competition held by Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville and the Charlottesville Community Design Center for the redevelopment of a local trailer park.
Here & Now: Chinese Artists in New York Zhijian Qian (Museum of Chinese in America, 2009) This exhibition catalog examines the relationship between the artist and tradition, crossing boundaries in a multicultural environment, and reinventing culture. It showcases 12 contemporary artists of Chinese heritage with established careers in New York in three chapters or areas of study: Visual Memories, Crossing Boundaries, and Towards Transculturalism.