A roundup of ideas and projects from around the Institute
Pratt NYPIRG recently exhibited a Public Transit Art Gallery in the Student Union on the Brooklyn campus as part of their advocacy for better transportation in the city for all New Yorkers. Subway-themed student work on view included this art by Xi Nan.
Elizabeth Lothian writes about The Seas by Professor of Writing Samantha Hunt in The Brooklyn Rail. “The Seas unfurls my spirit,” she writes. “It is the first work that spurs me to dive into my own slippery depths, to create from all that is submerged inside my head. The Seas allows me to greet the creature I am and fantasize about the one I could burgeon into being.”
Pratt alumni dressed celebrities for the 2025 Met Gala: Diana Ross in Sarah Sokol Millinery (Sarah Sokol, BFA Interior Design ’11); Janelle Monae wore Thom Browne in collaboration with fashion design alumnus Paul Tazewell; Chappell Roan in an upcycled look by Paul Tazewell; Taraji P. Henson in Monse in collaboration with Post-Imperial (creative director Laura Kim, BFA Fashion Design ’04).
Nanette Carter, MFA ’78, and former adjunct associate professor of fine arts, was featured in Hyperallergic. Her retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey “gives the viewer a look at an artistic language that continues to evolve and shed layers to reveal its essence.”
Dr. Mary McBride, chair and professor of creative enterprise leadership, highlights the critical challenge of our time in a recent article for Soda Zine, Engineering the Unsettled: Why Positive Turbulence Is Our Century’s Greatest Design Task. She emphasizes the power of positive turbulence as an opportunity to creatively design a future grounded in collaboration, equality, and hope. Dr. McBride calls on leaders and innovators to harness this moment of uncertainty to move beyond despair and build a more inclusive and hopeful world through design and leadership.
Dana-Marie Bullock, MFA ’25, is a 2025 Silver Art Resident. “At Silver Art Projects, the selected artists will be given the opportunity to expand their practice and amplify their work without the impediment of expensive New York City studio space.”
Eugene Kim, MArch ’26, is a recipient of the 2025 Center for Architecture Design Scholarship. “This recognition means a lot to me, especially as I continue to explore what it means to design with empathy, clarity, and purpose that I have been pursuing since the first day I decided to pursue spatial design,” he told the School of Architecture News Page.
Danielle Shumskas, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’25, was chosen for the Byrdcliffe Artists-in-Residence program, which provides exceptional artists with “uninterrupted creative time” at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, NY.
“Unveiling” by Alanna Fields, MFA Photography ’19, was listed among the “Queer Standouts” at Contact Photography Festival 2025 by Yohomo. “Her interest reaches backward to a time before she was born—long before our contemporary moment, in which queer identities and iconography are increasingly detached from their origins, commodified, and casually tried on at will.”
Professor of Fashion Design and Black Dress exhibition co-curator Adrienne Jones spoke to Essence about this year’s Met Gala, its theme “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” and the history of Black fashion design and styling. “There’s more than three colors in the crayon box,” she said. “Where was the vibrancy? I think of African tailors, of Caribbean elegance—rich color, texture, vibrance. That’s what I wanted more of.”
From Pratt Institute News
From Pratt Institute News
