The Daily Hub

First-year Historic Preservation student Siena Leone-Getten was announced as a 2024 Zabar Scholar by the Preservation League of New York State. The award provides scholarship funding to “the best and brightest preservation students studying in NYS.”

Beyoncé wears pieces by two Pratt alumni in her recent Super Bowl Verizon commercial and the videos for her new singles. Laurel DeWitt, BFA Fashion Design ’06, created a metal bra for “Texas Hold ‘Em” and a chain dress and hat for “16 Carriages,” while Sarah Sokol, BFA Interior Design ’11, designed two hats for the Verizon commercial.

Anton Ginzburg, adjunct assistant professor of graduate communications design, has a solo exhibition opening at Contemporary Calgary on March 13. Featuring paintings, sculpture, and generated video, Anton Ginzburg: Surface is “a reflection on the use of technology as it relates to cultural labour, data aesthetics, and machine learning.”

Pat Steir, BFA Graphic Arts ’62, is interviewed in T Magazine about her early career, creative process, and how being colorblind inspired her latest series of abstract paintings, on view now at Hauser & Wirth’s West Hollywood gallery. “The thing is, I only wanted to be an artist,” she said. “I only wanted to do this work in my life. Nothing else.”

Edel Rodriguez, BFA Painting ’94, was awarded the 2024 Hamilton King Award by the Society of Illustrators. His work, which has been commissioned by The New York Times, TIME Magazine, and The New Yorker, is “an examination of identity, cultural displacement, and mortality.”

Pratt President Frances Bronet was invited to contribute to the “50 Ideas for a Stronger and More Equitable Brooklyn” report by the Center for an Urban Future and Brooklyn Org and she called for launching a universal climate literacy campaign. “Every Brooklynite must be climate literate so that they can address the tremendous environmental challenges that confront us,” Bronet wrote. “Climate literacy starts with the understanding that we all share a planet and our humanity.”

Simon Arizpe, visiting instructor of undergraduate communications design, has been selected as a 2024 artist-in-residence for Zion National Park in St. George, Utah. The art created during the monthlong residency program “helps visitors understand and appreciate Zion and reflects the National Park Service’s mission to conserve the park’s landscapes, plants, animals and history.”

Mickalene Thomas, BFA Fine Arts ’00, and Jane South, chair of fine arts, will be honored as a “Dynamic Duo” at the 2024 Badass Art Woman Awards hosted by Project for Empty Space on April 10. “Together, Mickalene Thomas and Jane South founded Pratt>Forward, which is a free platform that inspires and mentors emerging artists by nurturing artistic exploration, bolstering career development skills, empowering cultural advocacy, and collaborating to develop new artist-led models for cultural engagement.”

Liv Ryan, BFA Fashion Design ’18, is profiled in Brooklyn Magazine in a piece that focuses on her multidisciplinary practice, studio in Red Hook, and commitment to sustainability. “I decided that if I was to be making clothes, I needed to implement as many sustainable practices as possible. Within all my productions, I’ve worked with deadstock materials, reworked vintage pieces, or organic fabrics.”

LEGO made a short film about Katherine Duclos, MFA Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing) ’12, and her use of LEGO building blocks in her artwork to express ideas about neurodivergence. “Katherine’s relationship with color and her unique use of bricks is a great inspiration to continue pushing the boundaries of creativity and play—that building with LEGO bricks can come to life in a million different ways.”