UMBC’s INTERMEDIA AND DIGITAL ARTS (IMDA) Masters Program presents “The Only Way Out Is Through,” the 2025 IMDA MFA Thesis Exhibition. 

Artists' Reception

Please join us at the CADVC gallery for a public reception with the artists on Thursday, March 27th, 5-7 pm. The thesis exhibition features five artists with diverse artistic practices and approaches: McCoy Chance, Ahlam Khamis, Ghazal Mojtahedi, Alexi Scheiber, and Mariia Usova.

Since the inception of the IMDA MFA Program at UMBC in 1992, the exhibition is presented each spring semester. Past exhibitions have included installation, performance, film, video, photography, animation, interactive art, sculpture, audio works, painting, drawing, and print media.

Please mark your calendar for these additional events associated with the exhibition and note that some programs occur *after* the close of the exhibition.

                                                                                                                                                        

RTKL Lecture: Alexi Scheiber
April 15, 12:30-1:30 pm

The gallery will remain open until 5 pm following the lecture.

The CADVC gallery is also the site of the annual “RTKL Lecture,” a fellowship lecture made possible through the generosity of RTKL (Rogers Taliaferro, Kostritsky, & Lamb) Associates Incorporated. The goal of this merit-based award is to support an emerging artist of creative and scholarly excellence who has demonstrated a promise to make an impact on the field. This year’s recipient of the RTKL fellowship is Alexi Scheiber.

Audience members are respectfully requested to wear a mask during this event, so the speaker may remove her mask for optimal audibility and communication. CADVC realizes masking is a personal decision and ultimately lies with each individual.

                                                                                                                                                        

Live Improvised Musical Performance
April 4, 1-1:30 pm

As part of “The Dead, The Living, and The Injured,” musicians Patrick Crossland, Ida Dierker, Brandon, Gouin, Jeremy Keaton, and Josh Weber join McCoy Chance for a collaborative performance exploring the lifespan of discarded electronics. They will engage with the screens and media works in the exhibition through live improvisation. The performance begins promptly at 1:00 pm on Friday, April 4, 2025, and will conclude in the Fine Arts Amphitheater immediately outside the gallery,—rain or shine—by 1:30 PM. The gallery remains open to the public from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

For more information and the full list of associated events, including MFA thesis defense times and additional hours of operation, please visit our website at cadvc.umbc.edu/mfa-2025.

Images: From the top “Conflux: Variation” video still, 2025, Shannon Collis & Liz Donadio, courtesy of the artists.(Description of audio, authored by the artists: a deeply resonant audio landscape builds momentum, merging field recordings of industrial machinery, trains, water, and wind with digital and analog synthesis. Layered low-frequency tones shift between foreground and background, aligning with the visuals. The soundscape evokes the essence of the visited sites and the interplay of natural and industrial elements.) 

Alexi Scheiber, “Artifacts from the Dreaming World – Tailoring & Fibers Workshop” (detail), 2024, Gouache on black paper, photo: courtesy of the artist (A navy blue building with stars painted on the facade. Sewing projects are demonstrated in the warm light of the window. A tulip wind turbine is installed on the green roof, the yard is dominated by daisies, and yellow passionflowers climb the front porch.)

Highly abstracted and layered images include several glowing blue TV monitors. On the left is a window looking out to an urban skyline silhouetted against a blue sky. Wires scatter across the hardwood floor in the foreground, and translucent figures of seated musicians are superimposed upon the middle of the interior studio space.

                                                                                                                                                        

Visitor Information

Our exhibitions and events are free and open to the public for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy.

If you need specific accommodations at one of our events, whether in person or online, or to experience an exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.

About the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC)

CADVC is a College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences research center and art gallery that produces scholarship, publications, and experimental engagements in the fields of art, design, and visual culture.

The CADVC is located on the first floor of UMBC’s Fine Arts Building. Admission to the gallery and public programs is free. Daytime metered parking is available in several nearby visitor parking areas. Please visit here for additional information.

Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, UMBC
1000 Hilltop Circle, Fine Arts Building 105, Baltimore, MD 21250

 

Gallery Hours:

Sun-Mon, closed

Tues-Wed, 12-5 pm

Thurs-Sat, 10-5 pm

cadvc@umbc.edu | (410) 455-3188

CADVC will host a public talk featuring Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio of Baltimore-region artist collective, Collis Donadio, on March 4 at 6 pm. Their work, “Conflux: Variation” will be on view nightly from sundown until 2 am between February 14 and June 30, 2025 at the Fine Arts Building at UMBC.

“Conflux: Variation” (2025) is a public video art projection that explores the intersections of industry and the environment in Baltimore, where water meets land.

Between 2023 and 2024, collaborating artists Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio recorded video and audio documentation in sites where industry has reshaped local habitats, such as the Curtis Bay Water Tower and Baltimore City’s marine terminals. The artists think of this documentary research and resulting installation as a “speculative exploration of the future, using moving images to convey transformation and transition.”

Learn more at cadvc.umbc.edu/collis-donadio.

Images: Some images may only visible in the MyUMBC Groups application. 

From top: Collis Donadio, Conflux Video still, 2025 Courtesy of the artists (A barren landscape with dark piles of rocks and soil under a blue sky with scattered clouds) Shannon Collis & Liz Donadio, Courtesy of the artists (Shannon Collis & Liz Donadio face forward. Collis, on the left, wears a black shirt and has long brown to blond hair. On the right, Donadio wears beige and has short dark hair. Both have light skin tones and stand in front of blooming foliage.)

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.) 

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.

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.)

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

Plan your visit

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.

"Spectrum of Process" presents a range of UMBC faculty approaches to art and culture through rigorous, experimental processes. The exhibition is interdisciplinary, including works of fine art, design, pedagogy, and the visual culture of research.

The 2024 UMBC Faculty exhibition is presented in two parts:

New Faculty and Staff Exhibition

• Eva Grandoni
• Dave Greber
• Eric Millikin
• Julie Sayo
• Kelley Yang

February 8, 6pm: Opening reception!

Join the faculty, staff, and students involved in "Spectrum of Process" for a celebratory reception.

February 14, noon: Research and Process, featuring faculty and students involved in the "Can You Catch a Deep Fake?" and "Artifacts" research projects

Join researchers Lee Boot, Christine Mallinson, and their research teams for intimate discussions about two critical research activities at UMBC, focused on the topics of climate science and Deep Fake audio technologies. Both of these interdisciplinary research activities use visualization strategies to interpret and understand important changes in our environment and culture. The format of the conversation will be a gallery tour followed by Q+A.

February 21, noon: Julie Sayo, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, presents Babayin Writing Workshop!

Julie Sayo is a Filipino-American graphic designer and educator. Her studio practice explores identity and the role of graphic design in decoloniality through the study and type design of Baybayin, a Tagalog writing system of the Philippines.

Join Julie Sayo in an interactive workshop to learn Baybayin writing and her research.

Space is limited. Sign up here.

Learn more about Public Programs here

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.

Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Fine Arts Building, 105
Baltimore, MD 21250
(410) 455-3188

Plan your visit

Images1. Chunky golden text of exhibition logo 2. Header: Detail, Gabriel C. Amadi-Emina, "Face Catcher," 2021, diptych photographic print on museo silver rag adhered flat on wooden panel. Courtesy of the artist. (On the left side is a close-up of brightly colored pink and orange flowers. To the right is a textile with bright pink flowers. The two are separated by a yellow void. Text on the far right says, "Who will survive.")