A Look Back at 2024: Corcoran Student, Faculty and Alumni Highlights

Corcoran Students

Senior Fine Arts and Art History major MC Daubendiek's art exhibition, KNEES, was featured on GW Hatchet. The exhibition was a part of the Luther Rice Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which provides funding for CCAS students. Here, Daubendiek's works explore the intersection of athletics and student health, focusing on the physical and emotional challenges of sports injuries. The exhibition combines visual art with themes of recovery and well-being, aiming to raise awareness about the impact of such issues on student-athletes. Daubendiek's work serves as a platform for discussing the broader connections between physical health and mental well-being in the context of college life. Read more here.

In November, Luke Johnson (New Media Photojournalism, M.A. 2026) won first place in student portfolios at the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, America's longest operating photojournalism conference. The contest promotes the highest standards of photojournalism via a yearly conference and photography contest judged by working photographers and editors.

Faculty

In November, Professor Clement Akpang published an article in Art Journal Open, titled "Beyond the Neo-Imperial Politicizing of Object Repatriation: Restitution and the Question of Decolonization". The article discusses the evolving role of art institutions in addressing environmental sustainability, particularly through the integration of eco-conscious practices and the promotion of climate action within the art world. Professor Akpang will also be giving a keynote at the College Art Association's CAA-Getty International Program's pre-conference colloquium in New York in February of 2025.

In September, assistant professor Max van Balgooypublished Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites, which he co-edited with Ken Turino of Historic New England. The book explores how museums and historic sites can use the complex history and traditions of Christmas to thoughtfully engage with diverse audiences. Includes contributions from museum studies alumni Sara Bhatiaand Sandra Smith.

Music Professor Douglas Boycewas featured in an episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration podcast, discussing his piece Ars Poetica. In the episode, music theorist Aaron D'Zurilla and Professor Boyce discuss their background, modernism, Ars Poetica, collaborating with the poet Marlanda Dekine, issues with market thinking and topics in modern music theory and composition. Listen here!

In the summer of 2024, Professor Douglas Boyce's work and film "Tyrian Purple" was featured at the Currents New Media festivalin Santa Fe New Mexico. The filmmaker uses the poetry of Melissa Range and Boyce's musical setting as the origin of prompts images and video, producing a method of controlling the AI to generate dynamic and aesthetically resonant footage that complements the artistic intents of the creators.

Associate professor of music Loren Kajikawa was asked to be a panelist at the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Speakeasy Series. The event is a partnership with local LGBTQ activist and organizer Rayceen Pendarvisand Team Rayceen Productions, who produced the most recent Art All Nightevent sponsored by the Mayor Bowser. The NMAAHC event included a panel discussion, performances of some classic Sylvester songs by Roz White, and a dance party featuring DJ Suspense.

Music Program Coordinator Mara Shermanwas interviewed for and had their work featured in Nora J. Williams' new book, Canonical Misogyny, which came out in December. The book Argues that Shakespeare's plays are dramaturgically misogynist and that surface-level interventions cannot remediate them or make them 'feminist'.

GW Professors Heather Stebbins and Ning Yu performed at Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival in November. This festival explores the merging electroacoustic art form and navigates between experimental and popular music. The festival featured performances combining audio and video interfaces, with all performances presented on immersive immersive multi-channel surround audio systems. Learn more here.

Allyson Vieira, Assistant Professor of Foundations, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award to conduct research on the island of Tinos, Greece during the 2024-2025 academic year. Vieira, who teaches in the Corcoran's Studio Arts program, will be conducting artistic and pedagogical research on traditional marble-carving by hand at the Professional and Preparatory School of Fine Arts in Panormous, Tinos. "This will build on and add a crucial embodied, experiential, physical component to the oral history research I conducted in On the Rock: The Acropolis Interviews, and enable me to expand my artistic material vocabulary to include stone-craft," Vieira said.

Ning Yu, Associate Professor of Music (Performance) and Director of Chamber Ensembles, received the Yvar Mikhashoff Prize, awarded annually, for international composers and performers of contemporary concert music.

Alumni

In October, alumna Dajana Douglas (MFA '23)'s new show, Dress Code, opened at the BlackRock Center for the Artsin Germantown, Maryland. The exhibition brings together documents and remnants from nine artworks by Douglas, mainly consisting of dresses transubstantiated while worn by the artist in performance. Each dress holds the weight of trauma, pulls at the bonds of familial and cultural inheritance, and ultimately symbolizes a shed skin and a completed cycle of rebirth. Read more about the show and Douglas' work here.

Alumni and former Corcoran professor James Huckenpahler(BFA '90) collaborated with artists at local organization ArtEnables, to produce their new exhibition, ALIAS. The abstract sculpture show, which opened in November, is composed of 12 large-scale sculptures that represent each of its 12 makers' personalities and artistic idiosyncrasies. They were originally designed by the artists as small paper maquettes and then cut from cardboard at 12 times their original size with the help of Hucklepahler. The collaboration was brought about by Gallery Director & Curator and fellow Corcoran alum Marisa Long(BFA '06), who first reached out to Hucklepahler with the idea of using technology to help bring the project to life. ArtEnables is an art gallery and vocational arts program that helps artists with disabilities make, market, and earn income from their original works.

Ilayda Sakalli(Interior Architecture, M.A. '23) recently began working at Ottan, a firm that creates bio-composite panels upcycled from food waste that can be used in interiors, automotive furniture, and any kind of surface. Before joining Ottan, Sakalli volunteered with Architecture Without Borders Turkiye branchto design a communal space for earthquake survivors in Hatay.

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