Though the SVA campus has been quiet this past year, the College has continued to host events and exhibitions online, and to make progress toward its goal of offering an accessible education and fostering an inclusive and equitable community.

SVA-affiliated artists have been active as well. Their work can be seen this spring and summer in New York City at three major museum exhibitions, in Rockefeller Plaza and on a landmark Coney Island attraction.

Read on for some of the latest SVA news. ❖

Last December, SVA announced the appointment of Jarvis Watson, EdD, to the newly created role of director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the College. Dr. Watson, previously assistant dean for student support services at Stony Brook University, now leads the DEI Task Force—a group of administrators, faculty and staff charged with identifying, prioritizing and addressing longstanding inequities at SVA. Together, they are now at work on developing a strategic plan and conducting community roundtables and open forums.

In February, Dr. Watson outlined his vision for his office and the Task Force in a Q&A for the College’s website. “We want to provide our students with a space for them to feel brave to express their identities and voices through their personalities and through their work,” he said. “We also have the obligation to educate them on the challenges that face them as they enter a world that is moving toward being equitable and just, but is still hesitant to fully accept and embrace difference and diversity.” 

The following month brought the debut of a podcast series, Diversity in 3D, through which Dr. Watson aims to spread awareness, education and unity through honest and open discussion with SVA community members. His first guest: Christopher J. Cyphers, PhD, the College’s provost.

In April, in response to the rise in anti-Asian and anti-Asian American violence and harassment, Dr. Watson, along with Catherine Rosamond, EdD, chair of MA/MAT Art Education, and Kaori Uchisaka, director of the International Student Office, hosted online forums for the College’s Asian and AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) faculty, staff and students. Later that month, in response to the conclusion of the Derek Chauvin trail and amid continued police shootings of unarmed people of color, DEI hosted a similar forum for BIPOC staff and faculty. And an initial diversity roundtable discussion, held with SVA student leaders, revisited the goals put forth last year by the Multicultural Student Union, a coalition formed by several of SVA’s cultural clubs. That conversation will inform the action items in the DEI Task Force’s forthcoming strategic plan.

For more information on DEI at SVA, visit sva.edu/dei.

Last November, SVA announced a partnership with advertising and design agency Deutsch NY to offer a new scholarship for undergraduates called Fund the Change. Conceived by Deutsch to support creative students from historically underrepresented backgrounds, this renewable merit scholarship will award two incoming first-year BFA Advertising or BFA Design students each $10,000 per year, totaling $40,000 each over the course of four years. 

In May, Deutsch NY and SVA announced the first two Fund the Change recipients: incoming BFA Design students Michael Barclay, of Chicago, Illinois, and Waverly Johnson, of Brooklyn, New York.

For more on Fund the Change, click here.

Three current exhibitions at two of New York City’s most prominent museums are dedicated to artists with an SVA connection—just in time for the return of in-person art viewing.

“Dawoud Bey: An American Project,” a traveling retrospective of nearly six decades of work by the acclaimed photographer Dawoud Bey (1977 Photography), opened in mid-April at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where it will be on view through October 3. The exhibition was previously on view at the High Museum of Art, in Atlanta, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and last year Yale University Press published a monograph, Dawoud Bey: Two American Projects, in conjunction with the show’s debut.

In February, “KAWS: WHAT PARTY,” a mid-career survey of work by KAWS, a.k.a. Brian Donnelly (BFA 1996 Illustration) opened at the Brooklyn Museum, where it will be on view through September 5. The exhibition features everything from the artist’s early graffiti work to his collectible figurines to his large-scale paintings and sculptures.①

KAWS is not the only SVA-connected artist being celebrated the Brooklyn Museum in 2021. “Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And,” the first retrospective of conceptual and performance artist Lorraine O’Grady, who taught in the College’s Humanities and Sciences Department for many years, is on view at the institution through July 18.

In the fall/winter 2020 Visual Arts Journal, we reported on alumni contributions to the first edition of the “Flag Project,” a new Rockefeller Center installation for which artists created flags to be flown in the center’s famous plaza, in midtown Manhattan, to celebrate New York City and uplift its residents in a time of crisis.

In late March, Rockefeller Center—in partnership with the photography nonprofit and publisher Aperture Foundation—installed its second round of artist’s flags, all based on photographic works and on view through the end of April. Once again, SVA alumni were represented: Renee Cox (MFA 1992 Photography and Related Media)② was among the nine commissioned photographers; Shen Wei (MFA 2006 Photography, Video and Related Media)③ and Natcha Wongchanglaw (MPS 2020 Digital Photography) were among the 83 contributors who were selected from more than 1,200 entrants to the open-call competition.

For more on the “Flag Project,” click here.

In April, the Charles & Lucille King Family Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting education and professional development in media studies, announced a $450,000 endowment to the Visual Arts Foundation, the nonprofit that funds SVA student scholarships. The gift, one of the largest in the College’s history, will be dedicated to supporting third- and fourth-year BFA Film majors.

Founded by Diana King in 1988, the King Family Foundation has over the years awarded hundreds of scholarships to students, many of them enrolled at SVA. King’s father, Charles, founded King World Productions, distributor of Jeopardy!, The Oprah Winfrey Show and other popular TV series, and she worked in the family business from the early 1970s until its sale to CBS Corporation, in 2000. She continued her role as board chair and president of the foundation until her death, in 2019.

The first five Diana King Memorial Scholarship recipients, announced in late April by Mary Lee Grisanti, acting chair of BFA Film, are Diego Garcia, Ahmari Ly-Johnson, Amit Lerner, John (Jack) Murtha and Elizaveta Voznesenskaia. For more information, click here.

Last year, BFA Illustration alumnus and faculty member Steve Ellis (1994) won the nationwide Coaster Canvas Contest, hosted by Coney Island’s Luna Park, for his design for the front-car panel of the Cyclone, the historic Coney Island roller coaster.

After being closed for the 2020 season, the park reopened this April and revealed the Cyclone’s new front panel, which Ellis hand-painted last summer. His design was inspired by the high-speed experience of riding the roller coaster; the layers of text reference amusement park signage of yore.

For more information, visit stevellis.com.

In April, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced its 2021 fellowships—a group of 184 distinguished academics, artists, scientists and writers—and among this year’s grantees are five SVA community members: alumnus Annie Sprinkle (BFA 1986 Photography) and MFA Fine Arts faculty Dara Birnbaum, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Dread Scott and James Siena.

For more information, click here.