AICAD Announces Fellows for 2019/20 Post Graduate Teaching Fellowship

Matthew Villarreal, Plaque, After Magritte, 2019. Acrylic and gold leaf on wood panel, 12 x 16 x 1.5 inches.

The Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD) is pleased to announce the seven Fellows who have recently been selected to participate in a year-long, Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship at participating AICAD institutions during the 2019/20 academic year. Additionally, five of the 2018/19 fellows will be continuing in their positions for a second year.

The Fellowship program seeks to provide professional practice opportunities to high-achieving alumni who have recently graduated from AICAD member schools, while also increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of faculty at these institutions. AICAD institutions aspire to create a climate that recognizes and values diversity as central to excellence in art and design education.

AICAD Fellowships include structured and unstructured mentoring and professional development opportunities along with direct teaching experience, health benefits, and other monetary supports.

View the announcement at Art & Education HERE!
New Fellows:

Fulla Abdul-Jabbar (MA, Visual and Critical Studies, 2016, School of the Art Institute of Chicago) placed at Pratt Institute. Abdula-Jabbar is the managing Editor at The Green Lantern Press based at Sector 2337. She has performed or exhibited at SPACES, Defibrillator, Woman Made Gallery, ACRE, BBQLA, St. John University in York, the University of East London, the Electronic Literature Organization, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

David Kim (M.Arch, 2018, Massachusetts College of Art and Design) placed at Pratt Institute. In 1999, Kim began a lengthy tenure at PleskowRael Architecture(s), eventually becoming an Associate and Senior Project Designer. He won an award for Excellence in Architectural Design and his thesis, “Mending Walls: A Center for Divided Families in the DMZ” was recognized as among the most compelling ever produced at MassArt.

Matthew Villarreal (MFA, Creative Writing, 2018, New Hampshire Institute of Art) placed at Parsons, The New School. Villarreal’s work uses tactile materials associated with both the body and the earth as a way to explore the various liminal points in language, politics, and the psychology of voicelessness. Much of his work utilizes desert motifs as a proxy to challenge conceptions of otherness.

Theresa Montiel (MFA, Community Art, 2019, Maryland Institute College of Art) placed at University of the Arts. Montiel’s major goal as a community artist is to draw on her personal experiences as a mixed-race female artist, her professional acumen, and her commitment to liberatory pedagogy in order to increase the agency of others through art education.

Stephen Foster (MFA, Photography, 2019, Rhode Island School of Design) placed at University of the Arts. Foster is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in photography, with interests in video, installations, music, digital fabrication, sculpture and performance. Steph creates images of blackness that are complex, messy, painful and sometimes contradictory, but also joyful and resilient.

Lauren Williams (MFA, Media Design Practices, 2019, ArtCenter College of Design) placed at the College for Creative Studies. William’s works with visual and interactive media to understand, critique, and reimagine the ways in which social and economic systems distribute power in service of a more equitable present and future.

Craig Campbell (MFA, Comics, 2017, California College of the Arts) placed at Columbus College of Art and Design. Campbell uses feminist theory and pop culture analysis to examine identity in conflict with societal expectations. These are notable in his curation of the exhibition Wonder: A Conversation with Wimmin, where he addressed second wave feminism in Bay Area comics during the 1970s.

Continuing Fellows:

Gina Gwen Palacios (MFA, Painting, 2018, Rhode Island School of Design) placed at Maryland Institute College of Art. Palacios is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in painting, although her work at times takes on a sculptural quality due to scale and other materials explored. Gina’s background in video, web design and interactive media also informs and expands her painting practice to include some performance and video work. Born and raised in South Texas, Gina’s work drives to create space in the official American history narrative of an underrepresented geographic and cultural narrative. Gina’s work has been exhibited throughout the South and Northeast, most recently at Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York City.

Delano Dunn (MFA, Fine Arts, 2016, School of Visual Arts) placed at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Dunn was born in Los Angeles, California. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts with an MFA in Fine Arts. Through painting, mixed media, and collage, Dunn explores questions of racial identity and perception within various contexts, ranging from the personal to the political, and drawing from his experience growing up in South Central L.A. Dunn is a recipient of A Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant, the College Art Association’s Visual Arts Graduate Fellowship in 2016, the Delaware Contemporary’s Curator’s Choice Award, and SVA’s Edward Zutrau Memorial Award. In 2017 he was nominated for the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship award.

Mrinalini Aggarwal (MFA, Installation Art, 2017, San Francisco Art Institute) placed at Pratt Institute. Aggarwal is an artist and arts organizer of Indian origin working at the intersections of architecture, art and design. Her practice is an anti-disciplinary exploration of space that seeks to reconsider the ways in which urban landscapes mediate human relationships.

Genevieve DeLeon (MFA, Painting, 2018, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at Minneapolis College of Art & Design. DeLeon is an artist and poet. Her drawings and paintings have been exhibited at the Tessellate Gallery, Forum Gallery at Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Washington Studio School, and the Yellow Barn Gallery. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Quarterly, Ekphrasis, and Poet Lore.

Swati Piparsania (MFA, 3D Design, 2018, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at Pratt Institute. Piparsania is an artist and designer from India. She has worked as a material designer, product manager and developer. She works primarily with object design and creates absurd props for performances. Reoccurring themes in her practice include dysfunctional comedy, restrained movements, and narrative studies.