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Hajjar Baban Headshot
Creative Writing

Poet Hajjar Baban Receives Soros Fellowship for New Americans

Hajjar Baban’s experience as an immigrant to America exists in all aspects of her work, she says, from “the words that I may obsess over to images that become motifs.” Baban – who received a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2020 and is currently a Master of Fine Arts student in the University of Virginia’s Creative Writing Program in poetry – was awarded the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, a merit-based award to support graduate study for immigrants and children of immigrants. Founded by Hungarian immigrants Daisy M. Soros and her late husband Paul Soros, the fellowship program honors the contributions of continuing generations of immigrants in the United States.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/poet-hajjar-baban-receives-soros-fellowship-new-americans

Marianne Kubik Theater Movement Class

Student Performance Groups Keep Their Art Alive in COVID-19 Pandemic

Acapella concerts on the Lawn, dance showcases, live theater productions – student performances have long graced the University of Virginia. In the past year, as coronavirus brought in-person shows to a halt, UVA’s performance groups adapted to create virtually and keep their art alive. Some groups are taking advantage of technology like Zoom or TikTok to allow students in different places to create, practice, or learn together virtually, while others have met in small groups with a lot of precautions in place. UVA Today reached out to a number of student arts groups across Grounds to find out how they survived the past year.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/student-performance-groups-keep-their-art-alive-covid-19-pandemic

Francis Kere headshot
Architecture

Francis Kéré, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist in Architecture

West African architect Francis Kéré, founder of the Berlin-based firm Kéré Architecture, is the 2021 recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture. Kéré received his architectural degree from the Technische Universität in Berlin in 2004, having originally been trained as a carpenter both in his native country of Burkina Faso and in Germany. While still an architecture student, he set up the association Schulbausteine für Gando e.V, later named Kéré Foundation e.V., which loosely translates to “School Building Blocks for Gando,” to fund the construction of a primary school for his hometown of Gando.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/francis-kere-thomas-jefferson-foundation-medalist-architecture

Warm Up America Art in Library Spaces Exhibition
Visual Art

Art in Library Spaces: Warm Up America!

In 2019, the UVA Library proposed a project to the Cornerstone Program to pilot an Art in Library Spaces program. The Cornerstone project team — Emerson Aviles, Kelli Martin, Jennifer Hasher, Katherine Grove, Gabriela Garcia Largen, Kate Beach, and David Sauerwein — developed a display plan for students, staff, faculty, and Charlottesville community art in Library spaces that represents the diversity of the University community. With so many Library spaces currently undergoing renovation, we are proud to have the opportunity to reimagine the feel and inclusivity of our Library.

https://smallnotes.library.virginia.edu/2021/04/01/art-in-library-spaces-warm-up-america/

Old Cabell Hall Exterior

Double Take: Life Lessons from a 4-Year-Old, a Beloved Single Dad, and 1970s Tumult

This year’s Double Take speakers were, in order of appearance, former Cavalier football player and member of the Class of 2020 Charles Snowden, UVA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis, first-year student Taylor Curro, community member Paul C. Harris Sr., his son and ’13, ‘16 ‘double Hoo’ Paul C. Harris Jr., UVA Hospital Cafeterias sous chef Eryne Zerihun and Joel Gardner, a ‘70, ‘74 ‘double Hoo.’

https://news.virginia.edu/content/double-take-life-lessons-4-year-old-beloved-single-dad-and-1970s-tumult

Bollywood Paisley Parks
Architecture

U Got the Look: Meet the Alumni Behind the 'Reimagining' of Prince's Paisley Park

After graduating from UVA in 2002 with a degree in biology, she attended a graduate theater program at Columbia University in New York City. She then performed in several off-Broadway shows before moving to Los Angeles, where she landed a number of roles in independent films, voiceovers, and commercials. But then, a funny thing happened. While living in Hollywood, Forjindam – just to make some extra money – took a job working at a company that designed theme parks. Almost instantly, Forjindam – perhaps influenced by her trip to the Magic Kingdom – was hooked.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/u-got-look-meet-alumna-behind-reimagining-princes-paisley-park

Black Fire Collaborators Everson and Harold
Film

Criterion Channel Features UVA 'Black Fire' Films for Black History Month

The Criterion Channel on Tuesday will showcase a series of short films about African American student life at the University of Virginia as one of its highlights for Black History Month. The film series, “Black Fire,” is an ongoing collaboration that UVA history professor Claudrena Harold and art professor Kevin Everson, an experimental filmmaker, have worked on for about a decade – always involving students – to focus on different aspects of Black experience on Grounds.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/criterion-channel-features-uva-black-fire-films-black-history-month

Francesca Fiorani Admiring Da Vinci
Art History

4 Things Art Historian Francesca Fiorani Wants You to Know About Leonardo da Vinci

Reading an article about a famous computer-generated scene in the Hollywood film “The Matrix Reloaded,” University of Virginia art history professor Francesca Fiorani couldn’t stop thinking about Leonardo da Vinci. The article focused on a digitally created fight scene in the sci-fi film in which Keanu Reeves, as Neo, dodges a barrage of bullets. The artists and animators behind the 2003 film said the most difficult part of such scenes was realistically recreating the shadows on people’s faces in different, fast-changing positions. “That is the exact problem Leonardo da Vinci worked to solve, though of course, he worked with brushes and pigments instead of pixels,” Fiorani said.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/4-things-art-historian-francesca-fiorani-wants-you-know-about-leonardo-da-vinci

Brighter Together UVA Chapel Projection

Brighter Together: 4 More Opportunities to See UVA Architecture Glow

The University of Virginia Chapel glowed with dancing colors this weekend as a pop-up projection mapping show played on its exterior. This show was the first of five opportunities to see local artist Jeff Dobrow light up some of UVA’s most recognizable buildings. The shows offer students and community members a way to experience art with one another while being masked and physically distant. The energetic pop-up projections blend UVA’s prominent architecture with colorful lights and music. At a time of pandemic (and academic) stress, organizers hope the shows will lift the spirits of those watching or walking by.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/brighter-together-4-more-opportunities-see-uva-architecture-glow?utm_source=DailyReport&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news

Holiday Concert UVA Lights on Buildings
Music

A Holiday Concert for 2020, from the University Singers and Charlottesville Symphony

The University Singers and the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia have lifted their voices – virtually – for a season-brightening 2020 Family Holiday Concert, remarkable for its beauty and for the technical coordination needed to put on the production. President Jim Ryan shared the concert with the University community, along with his best wishes for the holiday season and gratitude for all of the work that students, faculty, and staff put in this semester. “Every year, the Family Holiday Concert touches our hearts and unites our community. This year is no exception,” Ryan said. “While the program, like many things in 2020, is a bit different, it is just as heartwarming as ever, and it showcases the remarkable talent and resilience of our students and our neighbors in the Charlottesville community.”

https://news.virginia.edu/content/holiday-concert-2020-university-singers-and-charlottesville-symphony

Time for a Steam: UVA Alumni Help Meticulously Restore Carrara Marble Capitals
Architecture

Time for a Steam: UVA Alumni Help Meticulously Restore Carrara Marble Capitals

The moment had come for Leigh Hassler to remove a painstakingly constructed steam chamber created to surround one of the ornate Carrara marble capitals that adorn UVA’s Pavilion VIII. During the building’s original construction, Thomas Jefferson ordered these capitals from Carrara, Italy – the same source as the recently replaced capitals that front the Rotunda. Hassler and her team were six hours into an intense paint-removal process. A palpable sense of anticipation hung in the air. As the team got down to business, briskly removing the chamber’s box around the capital, steam rose into a crisp, blue fall sky.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/time-steam-uva-alumni-help-meticulously-restore-carrara-marble-capitals

Ghostly Forests on Eastern Shore Have a Story to Tell
Visual Art

Ghostly Forests on Eastern Shore Have a Story to Tell

The term “ghost forests” might sound like something from a Halloween movie, but these ghosts actually exist along low-lying shores, where rising seas infiltrate coastal forests. Trees in areas along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico are dying due to the increasing salinity of the groundwater, and the landscape is slowly transitioning to salt-tolerant marshland. University of Virginia environmental scientists, who study this interaction between sea and land and how it affects broader ecosystems, are taking on a new project: they are collaborating with artists on the Eastern Shore to reveal the phenomenon of ghost forests, to showcase their eerie beauty and to raise awareness of our changing coastal environments.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/ghostly-forests-eastern-shore-have-story-tell