Spring 2024
Visual Arts professor Kelley Bell was named as 2024 Baker Artist Awardee in Interdisciplinary Arts, receiving $10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize.
Nick Merdon‘s (Music) choral composition As When I First Found You has been accepted for the Baltimore Choral Arts Student Composer Project, which involves mentorship and a reading session on June 5, 2024. Nick composed the piece in honor of the Marriotts Ridge High School music program, and the work was read by their chamber choir directed by Mr. Ross Rawlings on April 30.
IMDA Alumna Leah Michaels (2019) received a Fulbright fellowship to Poland to teach English and research a short documentary she is producing about her ancestry.
Student composer Jack McGrath received a commission from the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society for his guitar duo Smalltimore, which will be premiered on the 2024-25 season.
Congratulations to Juan Sebastian Delgado, faculty fellow for diversity in the arts, on being awarded two Prix Opus awards from the Conseil des arts de Montréal! His duo Stick&Bow, with Krystina Marcoux, was awarded “Artist of the Year” and the “International Achievement Award.”
Montgomery County-based Perisphere Theater has appointed Theatre professor Gerrad Alex Taylor and Lizzi Albert as co-artistic directors.
Visual Arts professor Lynn Cazabon & her ongoing project “Losing Winter” were featured on the NPR series “Where We Live,” on the episode titled “How the Artist Captures Climate Change.”
Visual Arts professor Jules Rosskam’s hybrid documentary won the NEXT Jury Award at Sundance Film Festival. The film was also mentioned in the New York Times Critic’s Notebook as a film with “heart and intelligence”.
Carlyn Wilder (Art History, ‘13) was recently appointed Associate Curator at OZ Art NWA. As the Associate Curator for OZ Art NWA, Carlyn will play a pivotal role in the interpretation and communication of the stories of the collection.
Fall 2023
Safiyah Cheatam (IMDA ‘21) received the Waller Fellowship from Waller Gallery in Baltimore and was profiled in the article The Mundane Afrofuturism of multimedia artist Safiyah Cheatam, by Rahne Alexander (IMDA ‘21) on July 27 in UMBC Magazine.
Whistling Hens was featured in both the International Clarinet Association journal and the International Alliance for Women in Music journal in praise of their debut album, Reacting to the Landscape. Comprised of Natalie Groom (Affiliate Artist of Clarinet at UMBC) and soprano Jennifer Piazza-Pick (Director of Music & Professor of Music (Voice) at Queens University of Charlotte), they have been championing music by women composers since the duo hatched in 2018. Read the full reviews and listen to the album at linktr.ee/whistlinghens.
Lynn Cazabon (Professor, Visual Arts) worked on a new iteration of her ongoing project Losing Winter, hosted by Witte Rook in Breda, The Netherlands. Cazabon is collaborating with Dutch theater artist Anne Leijdekkers, working with community partners Park Zuiderhout and Podium Bloos. Cazabon and Leijdekkers will start by recording memories from residents living at Park Zuiderhout.
IMDA Alumna Mollye Bendell (2018) brought her installation OUTGROWN, a series of augmented reality works celebrating plants to downtown Jackson as part of the ETA Free Media Arts festival.
2023 IMDA Alumna Anna Kroll’s thesis exhibition “The Space is a Body and You are In It,” was featured in an article in the Brooklyn Rail.
Films by Visual Arts alum Chase Nickoles and current animation student David Anthony Cobb, Jr. and adjunct professor and library staff member Jim Doran have been screened as part of the Sweaty Eyeballs Film Festival in October.
SPARK 6: Refractions featured the work of UMBC and Towson faculty, recent graduates, and current students in the historic galleries of The Peale in Baltimore City. The Peale will offer several public events and chances to engage with the artists and work during the run of the exhibition from October 26, 2023 – November 26, 2023.
Spring 2023
Irene Chan (Professor, Visual Arts) was awarded a 2023 Member Project Grant from the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective.
Lynn Cazabon (CIRCA Director and Professor, Visual Arts), Rahne Alexander (IMDA ’21) and Nicole Ringel (IMDA ’19) were each awarded 2023 Grants for Artists from the Maryland State Arts Council.
Mandy Morrison (IMDA ’20) hosted several events happening in connection to her exhibition Journey of the Invader Spirit at the Peale Museum, including on Saturday, March 4, 2-3 p.m. a talk with Robin Gunkel PhD, about her soil remediation work using Sunflowers in abandoned spaces. On Saturday March 11, 1 – 2 p.m. a Capoeira workshop was offered with Justin West of the Capoeira Social Project and an artist talk will follow at 2:30 p.m.
Mark Durant (Professor, Visual Arts) presented films by Maya Deren and read from his book Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera at Tufts University in Boston on Thursday, March 30. His book was also the subject of this review The Creative Use of Reality: Peter Valente on Mark Alice Durant’s Maya Deren, Choreographed for Camera In Heavy Feather Review on March 27.