The Daily Hub

Cullen Washington Jr., visiting assistant professor of fine arts, was chosen as the inaugural Helen Frankenthaler Foundation residency recipient for the organization’s International Studio & Curatorial Program. The residency, which runs through May 31, explains that “Cullen Washington Jr.’s abstract paintings convey the feeling of the divine in nature through matter and light, which he calls TerraChroma.

Three Pratt faculty members—Francis Bradley, associate professor of social science and cultural studies; Nina Freedman, visiting associate professor of undergraduate architecture; and Roland Mikhail, visiting associate professor of fine arts—received 2024 New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA) grants for different creative projects. NYSCA works to “foster and advance the full breadth of New York State’s arts, culture, and creativity for all.”

Sara Zielinski, MFA Sculpture and Integrated Practices ’23, received a 2024 New York State Council on the Arts grant award for her project “ABOLITIONIST BENCHES” with the arts organization Culture Push. Zielinski is creating a series of wooden benches around the sites of the Manhattan Detention Complex and the Brooklyn House of Detention for community members to sit and discuss the “effects of incarceration, jail demolition, and jail construction on their businesses and psyches.”

Hoda Ramy, MFA Digital Arts ’21, animated and directed the music video for the song “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” from GRAMMY nominated group säje, featuring Jacob Collier. The video showcases Ramy’s minimalist, vibrant, and symbolic style to depict a character on a personal, inward journey. 

Anthony Cudahy, BFA ’11; Lizzy Lunday, MFA Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing) ’19; and Vanessa Gully Santiago, visiting instructor, are among the artists selected for NYLON’s 10 Painters to Watch 2023 edition. “For the 2023 Art Issue, NYLON brings you the newest crop of talented and thrilling artists, those who are pushing the boundaries in the ever-evolving medium of painting — and they’re only getting started.”

Rodney Leon, BArch ’92, designed the recently opened Cultural Museum of African Art in Bed-Stuy, which features more than 3,000 ancient artifacts. “Our challenge was really to balance and provide enough space for the artifacts to be exhibited,” Leon said. “No matter what, we were going to do whatever to help bring this public space to fruition.”

Sahar Khraibani, acting assistant chair of undergraduate communications design, received a 2023 Arts Writer Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation. The work enabled by the grant will entail “a series of articles on the artistic modes of production employed by queer artists from the Arab world and its diaspora.”

Martha Molfetas, visiting assistant professor in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, was chosen as New America’s Senior Planetary Politics Fellow for 2024. “New America’s Fellows Program invests in thinkers—journalists, scholars, filmmakers, and public policy analysts—who generate big, bold ideas that have an impact and spark new conversations about the most pressing issues of our day.”

Mary McBride, chair of Creative Enterprise Leadership, is discussing her book Leading As If Life Matters: An Invitation to Attend a Future of Our Own Making at the Design Management Institute Symposium 2023 on Dec. 6. McBride’s book is a call to action “for human enterprise to take on the challenge to restabilize the key elements upon which our shared future depends.”

Maria Montes Duran, BFA Photography ’25, received the New Generation Prize of the PHMuseum 2023 Women Photographer’s Grant for her photography series ¿Cómo te sientes ahora? “My visual style has been influenced by my Hispanic-American heritage and it is a consistent theme in my photos. I explore this through various methods and connect these disparate parts through one investigation of my culture,” she said of the project, which will be displayed at the Photo Vogue Festival 2023.