Department Of Art

In today’s world, collaboration is essential in solving problems, bridging the gaps between science, engineering, medicine and the humanities. By prioritizing cross-disciplinary collaborations, Vanderbilt walks the walk—not only across departments—but across schools and cultures. Read More

“Woven Wind,” led by Vanderbilt art professor Vesna Pavlović, is a collaborative project that honors untold stories of enslaved people through art, archival research and community engagement. Funded by significant grants including a $40,000 NEA grant announced May 15, the project symbolizes resilience and remembrance with unique clay vessels created during reparative justice workshops. Read More

A multidisciplinary artist from Cuba, María Magdalena Campos-Pons creates installations that showcase her personal experiences as a Cuban woman as well as document displacement and inequality in the Caribbean. She was awarded a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship last October from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Read More

Tucked behind the 6 Magnolia Building on Vanderbilt’s Peabody Campus is what might look to some like a lush garden of weeds. In reality, it’s a strategic Native Meadow full of pollinator-friendly plants. Since its inception, the meadow has flourished, and many faculty, staff and students have found ways to collaborate and interact with the space, thought of as a ‘living lab.’ Read More

María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Art, has been named the 2024 SEC Faculty Achievement Award winner from Vanderbilt University. Her artistic work spans a variety of media, including photography, performance, sculpture, drawing, painting and video. She employs them in immersive installations that explore her experience as a Cuban woman and the broader issues facing Caribbean people, including displacement and inequality. Read More

María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Art, has been awarded a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship for her work exploring personal and collective histories across the Caribbean. Read More

In 2022, as Vanderbilt’s 150th anniversary approached, recent graduates Allen Zeng, BA’23, and Richard Zhang, BA’23, set out to capture the essence of the university by photographing its community members. Collaborating with Professor of Art Vesna Pavlović and librarian Yvonne Boyer, the two developed the “Vanderbilt Self-Portrait” project, supported by a Sesquicentennial Grant from the chancellor’s office and a Buchanan Library Fellowship. Read More

The art of six Vanderbilt University students will be featured in Trash Talk, a new exhibition on display in the gallery space at Turnip Green Creative Reuse April 1–29. Read More

Space 204 and the Vanderbilt, Arts and the Middle East: Building Bridges to the Global and the Local curatorial program present Entropic Systems, a solo exhibition from Iranian artist Laleh Mehran. The exhibition, on view through Oct. 20, features an immersive video/audio experience surrounding an engineered drawing piece activated by the movement of gallery visitors. Read More

Professor of Art Vesna Pavlović has been awarded a Scaling Success Grant in the May 2022 cycle of the new internal funding opportunity for her research project titled “Woven Wind.” The grant supports faculty as they leverage their research into larger, more competitive awards from federal, foundation or industry sponsors. Read More

Afro-Cuban American artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice, a trans-institutional partnership that she founded at Vanderbilt University, have received prestigious awards this spring. Read More

Senior Emily Kopec is the 2021 recipient of the $25,000 Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award, the Department of Art’s top student prize, and senior Cayla B. Mims is the recipient of the $10,000 Merit Award. Read More

Read about the latest faculty, staff and student awards, appointments and achievements. Read More

Raheleh Filsoofi, a new assistant professor in the Department of Art, draws on her childhood in Iran and the U.S. immigration experience as themes in her work. Read More

The symbolism of frayed, worn flags in "Flag Exchange" by Mel Ziegler, Paul E. Schwab Professor of Fine Arts, raises questions about the capacity of the American experiment to be sustained through national triumphs and shortcomings, including our own time of divisiveness. Read More

When COVID-19 arrived in Nashville, Jana Harper, professor of the practice of art, had to quickly adapt her NEA-supported performance art piece to reflect the necessities of social distancing. Read More

The OZ Arts online premiere of "This Holding: Traces of Contact," a performance video emerging from an interdisciplinary collaboration led by Associate Professor of the Practice of Art Jana Harper, will be May 29. Read More

Robert B Talisse will deliver an online gallery talk, “Overcoming Partisan Politics,” hosted by the Frist Art Museum on Friday, May 8. The session over Zoom, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 3 p.m. Read More

The Department of Art announces senior Rebecca Arp as this year’s recipient of the prestigious Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award and will receive a $25,000 prize providing funds for a year of art research and travel, culminating in a solo show at Vanderbilt in one year. Senior Sydney Kaemmerlen is the recipient of the Merit Award and $10,000. Read More

"Dream for Light Years," a collaboration between contemporary artist Ali Smith and Blair School of Music's Michael Alec Rose, can now be enjoyed online. Read More