The Daily Hub

Reid Davenport, former visiting assistant professor of film and video, is featured in GW Today in a profile of his career as a documentary filmmaker and efforts to advance the rights of people with disabilities. “The idea that disability isn’t an individual medical diagnosis but rather a political class of marginalized people with shared experiences. It’s about removing systemic barriers in society,” Davenport said.

Marland Backus, BID ’15, speaks with Vogue about her career trajectory and her love of wearables that reimagine what’s possible. “I like to be a little bit controversial and push the boundaries,” she said. “What’s jewelry? What’s fashion? What’s wearable?”

Loren Daye, MID ’06, discusses her latest projects, interests, and career in an interview with Surface. “I’m trying some new things out that I don’t have a model for, but the unfolding—not the future outcome—is the objective,” she said. “Even on the gritty days, I’m riveted at its evolution. No built project will ever keep adapting the way a group of people pursuing an idea does.”

Hiba Schahbaz, MFA Fine Arts ’12, offers a glimpse into her Bushwick studio for Curbed. “I started painting hundreds of myself and people I knew,” she said. “I still have them somewhere. They were all in profile because in Mughal paintings, you have the side profile, and in Persian ones, you have three-quarters. I think it took me another couple of years to face outward.”

Divya Anantharaman, BFA Fashion Design ‘06, discusses their Sunday routines and career as a taxidermist in The New York Times. “Taxidermy is a very homogeneous field. It’s very, very white and very, very straight,” they said. “I’m not either of those things.”

Daiwen Mila Wang, BFA Fine Arts (Jewelry) ’23, was selected for inclusion in the So Fresh + So Clean Exhibition by Ethical Metalsmiths. Her Glass Vitamin Necklace from her 2023 thesis collection will be featured.

Mark Grattan, BID ’06, was featured in Elle Decor for designing the home of U.S. sports stars Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird. “I wanted to try a moment where it doesn’t work on paper,” Grattan said. “It works only in real life.”

The experimental play “Kinderkrankenhaus” by Jesi Bender, MSLIS ’12, will show at Brooklyn’s Brick Theater in September. The play “explores neurodiversity, the pathologizing of difference, and the complexity of labels in a world where the unspeaking are seen as unthinking.”

Raymond Figueroa Jr., visiting instructor in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE) and president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition, was interviewed for The New York Times article “Vital Places of Refuge in the Bronx, Community Gardens Gain Recognition.” The story describes how communities throughout NYC are adapting to climate change with the help of community gardens.

MoMA PS1 in Long Island City has revived its summer Warm Up series featuring a new stage designed by Raque Ford, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’10.