The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC) requests your thoughts about a park located on the south side of UMBC campus, across from the arena. Intermedia and Digital Arts Masters of Fine Art Welcome Event
When: October 30th, 2024, 12-1:30pm
Where: CADVC
Please join the Visual Arts Department in welcoming our new Intermedia and Digital Arts (IMDA) Graduate Students to UMBC. On Thursday, October 30th from 12:00-1:30 pm, we will host a fun and engaging round of micro-talks at the CADVC, with a mixer afterwards. Our new grads will give short presentations about their research and art practice. Stop by to say hello and meet the IMDA class of 2027! Refreshments will be provided!
Mary Ryan Budnitz is a 2D animator & illustrator born and based in Baltimore, MD. Mary uses the monstrous and fantasy in relation to body positivity, exploring romance and inclusion through digital animation and illustration.
Jaslyn Tabourne is a multimedia artist primarily creating animated and painted works. Jaslyn is passionate about storytelling and creating art that can be inspirational, relatable or shift the perspective of her audience. During her time in the IMDA program, Jaslyn hopes to create narrative pieces that explore her experiences and revelations as a Christian woman.
Brittney Barbour is a filmmaker, film programmer, and video artist from Washington DC. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Intermedia Digital Arts to incorporate multimedia form into her filmmaking process and presentation.
María Sánchez is a filmmaker, designer, and multimedia artist from Caracas, Venezuela. Using multiple mediums such as digital video, performance, and installation, she creates narratives about self, place, belonging, and transformation in conjunction with feminist film theory.
Rokhsareh Alvandi works in drawing, painting, illustration, and video animation to create contemporary stories of women, religion, and politics that reflect her Iranian Negargari ancestry.
The Intermedia and Digital Art (IMDA) MFA program provides participants with access to eminent faculty, visiting artists, critics, and curators, studio space and state-of-the-art facilities.
Recent graduate students have pursued issues of food justice, surveillance, place, language, economics, and technology, resulting in projects that use a range of traditional gallery-based art media as well as experimental modalities, like street interventions, distributed networks, physical computing, games, and community-based projects. Financial support, including tuition remission and stipends, is available.
IMDA is committed to making its events accessible to everyone. Please send your request for specific accommodations to imda@umbc.edu.
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture presents the early-career survey Levester Williams: all matters aside, an exhibition curated by Lisa D. Freiman, professor of art history at Virginia Commonwealth University
The exhibition will be accompanied by the first in CADVC's public art projection series with a new video art gallery set into the open amphitheater of the UMBC Fine Arts Building. There is more information on the projection series at https://umbc.edu/stories/exploratory-artist-levester-williams-marble/.
The Opening Reception will include a public program featuring Levester Williams, Michelle Diane Wright, and Lisa Freiman.
The exhibition will open for regular hours on Friday, September 20, and will continue through December 14.
Visitor Information
Admission is free.
Parking for the Opening Reception is free, available in nearby Lot 8. Please visit here for directions and additional information.
Header: Detail of video still of Nia Hampton in the vignette “Nia’s Embrace” from “dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore,” filmed at Mount Vernon Park Place in November 2023. Photo by Levester Williams. (Coming from behind, a hand with dark brown skin tone reaches around to the front of a marble column in a park-like setting. In the background a black and white marble border runs between a parallel strip of grass and a reflecting pool.) Body: A drone image of the Texas Quarry in Cockeysville, Maryland, one of the locations where Cockeysville marble is mined. Photo courtesy of Levester Williams. (Birdseye view of a circular bright teal body of water at the center of a marble quarry.)
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The 2024 Visual Arts Senior Exhibition is up from May 14 through May 25.
Stop by the CADVC to view the graduating students’ work starting today and again for the reception and awards presentation on May 21 from 5 to 7pm!
If you need a specific accommodation at one of our events or to experience an exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.
[Images: 1. CADVC logo: "Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture" in white text against black background. 2. Header as of May 14, 2024: a long rectangular, pink background with white text that reads "VISUAL ARTS SENIOR EXHIBITION." 3. In a gallery space, there are several artworks on the wall. At the front, to the right of the photo is a wooden table and stools. Behind this table are two walls with a series of 2-D artworks with vibrant colors and shapes. To the left of these walls is what looks like a machine on a pedestal. The wall on the left of these two walls features a portrait of a group of people holding two pets. To the left of this artwork are two exhibition posters installed along the height of the wall. Behind these walls are drawings with bold brushstrokes and a bench.]
Curated and designed by UMBC IMDA MFA student and CADVC Graduate Assistant Andrew Liang, this exhibition celebrates the extensive work of senior undergraduate students in the UMBC Visual Arts Department.
Join us for the Artists’ Reception and Awards Presentation on May 21st from 5-7 pm!
If you need any specific accommodations at one of our events or to experience the exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.
[Images: 1. CADVC logo: "Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture" in white text against black background. 2. Header: A long rectangular, pink background with white text that reads "VISUAL ARTS SENIOR EXHIBITION." 3. This is a poster with white text on a hot pink gradient background that blends into white at the bottom. At the top left corner is the stylized white text “VISUAL ARTS SENIOR EXHIBITION.” On the left and under this title text is other information “May 14 - May 25” and “Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250.” At the center of the poster is information about the exhibition’s artist reception and award presentation, which is on May 21, 5 to 7pm. At the bottom of the poster are CADVC, UMBC and The Citizens of Baltimore County logos and CADVC website. ]
“Not Grounded” – the 2024 IMDA MFA Thesis Exhibition
PUBLIC OPENING: APRIL 4, 5–7PM
CADVC – Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture
UMBC Campus
Free and open to the public
CADVC is excited to present “Not Grounded: the 2024 IMDA MFA Thesis Exhibition” from April 5 to April 27. This year's MFA exhibition features graduate student artists Elly Kalantari, Andrew Liang, Kristin Putchinski and Ann Zellhofer.
Please celebrate with the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, and the artists of the UMBC Intermedia and Digital Arts Master’s Program at the opening reception on April 4, from 5 pm to 7 pm. All are welcome!
Related Programming:
April 4, 5-7pm Opening reception
April 10, 9-11am Kristin Putchinski thesis defense
April 17, 11-1pm Elly Kalantari thesis defense
April 18, 12-1pm RKTL Lecture: Elly Kalantari
April 23, 3-5pm Andrew Liang thesis defense
April 25, 11-1pm Ann Zellhofer thesis defense
All events are free and open to the public.
Please note: MFA Thesis defenses must be conducted in a closed-door room according to university protocols. After a defense begins, audiences will not be admitted, and will be requested not to exit, for the duration of the first full hour.
Please visit this webpage to learn more about the exhibition!
If you need any specific accommodations at one of our events or to experience the exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.
[Images: 1. CADVC logo: "Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture" in white text against black background. 2. This is a poster with black text on white background. To the left is a graphic including letters with different sizes, arranged vertically to form the words “Not Grounded.” At the top right corner is a text that reads “2024 IMDA MFA Thesis Exhibition April 5 - 27, 2024.” At the bottom right corners are names “Ann Zellhofer,” “Kristin Putchinski,” “Elly Kalantari,” and “Andrew Liang.”]
]]>Thursday, February 29, 2024, 6-8 pm
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC) inaugurates the "demo" of a new public video art projection gallery with work by artist Levester Williams, featuring his work "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore" (2021-2024). The event will include a conversation between Williams and curator Lisa Freiman. Hot refreshments will be served. Showings of the work will continue on select evenings in late February and early March.
The work is the result of the artist's Exploratory Research Residency at CADVC, ongoing since 2023. During this time, Williams has been researching the histories and mythologies of Cockeysville (Maryland) marble, a material used in many salient objects in the local built environment, including the Washington Monument and iconic exterior steps of Baltimore rowhomes. The film results from this research as well as movement workshops and other activities that included the participation of UMBC students and other Baltimore residents. Artist Nia Hampton, a current IMDA graduate student, and her mother, artist and arts advocate Sheila Gaskins, are featured performers. The filmic work was assisted by IMDA graduate student Bao Nguyen and artist Savannah Knoop, who worked on the project as an intimacy coordinator and facilitator.
dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore is an embodied consideration of the labor histories, and mythologies, surrounding a marble building material that appears throughout Baltimore's built environment. In the movement experiments surrounding the film work, participants negotiated relationships to public space, monumental form, and connections to history. In Williams's words, the project underscores the "intertwined history of African-Americans' plight to self-determined agency and full citizenship, and a rather benign stone."
This public display of an art work-in-process is consistent with CADVC's commitment to showcasing the experimentation of artists and the visual culture of interdisciplinary research. Currently, CADVC's gallery is exhibiting Spectrum of Process, highlighting UMBC faculty approaches to art and culture through rigorous, experimental processes.
Admission is free.
Visitors who need specific accommodations should contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Fine Arts Building, 105
Baltimore, MD 21250
(410) 455-3188
Images - 1. Levester Williams, "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore" (2021-2024); 4K color video/video installation still (In a park-like setting, a person with dark brown skin tone sits embracing a white marble column from behind. Their hands touch the stone. Their face, obscured. They wear a light pink sweatsuit and brown boots. In the background, a nude fountain sculpture spouts water from the center of a pool of water. White marble also forms the border around the pool.)
]]>The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC) hosts an exploratory research residency that allows artists and interdisciplinary collaborators to take advantage of scholarly resources and to build partnerships at UMBC and in the Baltimore region. Artists In Residence (AIRs) are invited to pursue open-ended outcomes, and their engagements may develop into workshops, artworks, or other future projects.
This season, CADVC welcomes three low-residency AIRs who are developing research and creative projects in UMBC and Baltimore. The visiting artists will offer programs open to the general public in the UMBC Lion Brothers building in downtown Baltimore.
Paul Rucker
Paul Rucker is a multimedia visual artist, composer, and musician. His practice often integrates live performance, original musical compositions, and visual art installation. For over two decades, Rucker has used his own brand of art making as a social practice, which illuminates the legacy of enslavement and its relationship to the US prison industrial complex.An avid collector of artifacts and archives, Rucker holds more than 15,000 pieces about the history of the United States. Items that address false narratives of US history and the strategic withholding of historical events are used as a tool of "demonization for colonization." His research visit to Baltimore will focus on Baltimore County and the history of "coordinated exclusion."
Paul Rucker and artist Kim Rice had a public discussion about their research into the history of urban redlining. Rucker and Rice discussed a project-in-process focused on discriminatory real estate practices and the power of art to change spatial injustice.
Tomashi Jackson
Tomashi Jackson is an expanded field painter whose multimedia work investigates the links between history, materiality, and current events. In her residency at CADVC, which began in 2022, she has been developing a body of research focused on the history of and advocacy for alternative art spaces. This work builds on Jackson's existing research that she calls the "Pedagogy Study Hall" project. The project is ongoing.
February 20, 5:30pm: Join Tomashi Jackson for a discussion about her present research. Jackson will be in conversation with Dr. Nicole King, Associate Professor of American Studies and Director of the Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture at UMBC. Spaces are limited. RSVP required at this link: https://forms.gle/wqSCicNmUHYCvApb9.
Levester Williams is a multimedia artist whose artistic production is rooted in explorations of the relationships between the material and social worlds. His sculptural work and multichannel video projects have been exhibited in museums and art spaces nationally and internationally. In the 2023-2024 academic year, Williams is making a series of visits to UMBC and Baltimore to complete a new filmic work under the project title "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore." Williams is researching the histories of Cockeysville (Maryland) marble, a material used in many salient objects in the local built environment, including the Washington Monument and iconic exterior steps of Baltimore rowhomes. The movement art documented in Williams's film is an embodied consideration of the labor histories, and mythologies, surrounding this complex material. In Williams's words, the project underscores the "intertwined history of African-Americans' plight to self-determined agency and full citizenship, and a rather benign stone."
March 5, 6pm: Levester Williams will be in conversation with collaborators on his current work in progress, "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore"(2021-2024). Other discussants will be announced. Spaces are limited. RSVP required at this link: https://forms.gle/cV5xEnT572A2e9zNA
More information about CADVC Exploratory Research at: https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/588001/cadvc-exploratory-research/
If you need a specific accomodation at one of our events or to experience an exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or (410) 455-3188 as soon as possible.
Learn more about Public Programs here.
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Fine Arts Building, 105
Baltimore, MD 21250
(410) 455-3188
Photos courtesy of the artists (1. Black and white headshot of artist Paul Rucker. He is masculine-presented and wears a beard, wears glasses and a beret, a button-up plaid shirt, and an undershirt. 2. Artist Tomashi Jackson is sitting on a step ladder, looking to the left. She has brown skin and dark, long braided hair. She wears a floral blouse, jeans and Nike shoes. Behind her is an abstract painting on canvas with rectangles in different shades of blue and pink. On top of the rectangles are different shades of red. 3. Artist Levester Williams is pictured from the chest up and looks straight forward toward the viewer. He is male-presenting with medium brown skin tone, short dark hair, and light facial hair. He wears a dark, long-sleeve t-shirt with a white and orange zig-zagging stripe across the chest and arms. He stands in the middle of an urban street with parked cars and buildings in the background.)
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Fine Arts Building, 105
Baltimore, MD 21250
(410) 455-3188
Images: 1. Header: Chunky golden text of exhibition logo. 2. At the center of a colorful graphic design is a white circle with the text "Artistic Methods." A star diagram encircles the central title. Wooden disks, with individual researchers' names hand-printed on them, rest on the points of the star. Colorful overlapping circles surround the star at the perimeter of this square-cropped image.
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