Stamps School at 2019 College Art Association Conference
This February 12-16, the Stamps School of Art & Design joins over 2000 creative practitioners and educators from across the nation for the College Art Association’s 107th annual conference in New York City.
Exploring the complexities, challenges, and opportunities of the field, the conference will include more than 300 sessions and 500 meetings and events. The CAA conference is a highly anticipated annual conference for the Stamps community, with many engaged with the association throughout the year. Stamps faculty such as Kelly Murdoch-Kitt have given interviews for CAA media efforts in recent months; Stamps Professor Audrey Bennett serves on the CAA’s Board of Directors, the Committee on Design, and the Committee on Diversity Practices. Additionally, Stamps School Librarian Jamie Vander Broek serves on the editorial board of caa.reviews.org.
As part of the tenth annual New Media Caucus Showcase at CAA, professor Sophia Brueckner will give an artist talk about Captured by an Algorithm, her project featuring a commemorative plate series celebrating singular, fleeting moments in how common algorithms interpret the most popular romance novels. The talk will take place on Thursday, February 14th at the Hunter MFA Building, 205 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013.
On Friday, February 15, Stamps professor Rebekah Modrak will present a paper entitled “Disarming Misogyny as a Dude” as part of the “Power, Resistance, and Gender Issues in the Arts of Women” session.
“At CAA, I’ll talk about Re Made Co., which poses as an online “company” to parody actual company, Best Made Company,” said Modrak. “Best Made specializes in a $350 hand-painted axe, and sells this designer tool using the rhetoric of male aggression and nostalgia for America’s pioneer past. Re Made sells a $350 artisanal plunger. While Re Made’s brand messaging is designed (in the image of Best Made Co.) to be “masculine,” I discovered that most viewers also assume that the artist behind this parody is a man. During the presentation, I’ll describe audiences’ gendered expectations of both handcrafted plungers and art.”
On Saturday, February 16 Dr. Jane Prophet, Associate Dean for Research, Creative Work, and Strategic Initiatives at the Stamps School, will present a paper entitled "What's Going On? An International Comparative Study of PhD Methods in Art and Design" as part of a session entitled “Changing Pedagogies: A History and Evaluation of New Curricular Demands and Delivery.”
“There have been many calls for a more consistent and thorough use of research methods among PhD researchers supervisors of Practice-Based Research (PBR) in the arts, but few analyses of what methods are commonly used and how they are taught,” Dr. Prophet says of her presentation. “Many papers addressing the PhD in the arts mention method but do not define it, focusing instead on debates such as practice-led versus practice-based approaches or the perceived threat of the PhD to the MFA as the terminal degree. This paper presents findings from a recent large-scale international survey examining current practice in art and design in the field of research methods training.”
Professor Audrey Bennett will be chairing a panel entitled “Human-Centered Design Research” on Saturday, February 16. In addition, Bennett is co-facilitating two round table discussions at the conference: “Diversity in Design” (with co-facilitator Elizabeth Guffey) and “Designing for Underserved Populations: Successes and Challenges” (with co-facilitator Yelena McLane).
“The roundtable discussions are open forums for conference attendees to give input and gain insight on how design pedagogy can better teach inclusivity and access, diversify the discipline of design, and meet the needs of underserved populations within the design classroom and beyond.” said Bennett. “I am honored to serve my profession through leadership on CAA's Board of Directors. My goal is to cultivate and sustain cultural and intellectual diversity within the organization’s membership and operating activities.”
Additionally, Stamps graduate student Rowan Renee (MFA ‘19) was named an Honorable Mention in the CAA Professional Development Fellowship program. This honor will be received at the awards reception on Wednesday, February 13 at 6:00 PM at the New York Hilton Midtown.
For almost a century, the College Art Association has been advancing the history, interpretation, and practice of the visual arts, vigorously supporting the rights of visual artists and art historians, exploring opportunities for new directions, and responding to new needs and concerns.
Of the 2019 Stamps School participation, Dean Guna Nadarajan states: “I am so thankful to the students and faculty members who bring their research, scholarship and service to the field through the annual CAA conference. Their expertise and engagement enable the school to continue to lead and support the critical national conversations and developments in creative practice and education.