A roundup of ideas and projects from around the Institute
Through April 3, Georgetown University’s Maria & Alberto de la Cruz Art Gallery is exhibiting work by photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode who attended Pratt from 1980 to 82. Influenced by fellow Pratt alumnus Robert Mapplethorpe, he created stylized portraits of Black men before his death at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Pratt Institute was the lead in a WNYC radio spotlight and Gothamist feature article on the high demand for an arts education, with record-breaking enrollment at New York City schools, a surprising trend given recent headlines. “Especially when the world is so unstable and insecure, I think that art is a place of reflection, resistance and imagination,” Pratt Institute Fine Arts Chair Jane South said in the piece. Professor of Fine Arts Adrienne Elise Tarver added that students are “very interested in the material,” and Manar Balh, BFA ’26, was quoted saying, “A lot of my peers understand that nothing is guaranteed really, no matter what you study, so you should just study the thing that matters the most to you.”
Eshaan Mehta, BArch ’26, curated the Architecture = Art: The Susan Grant Lewin Collection exhibition at The Paul Rudolph Institute. “These drawings transcend function,” Lewin told School of Architecture News. “They are personal, poetic, and often provocative. They show how architecture begins with a bold visual idea.”
Adjunct Professor – CCE of Fine Arts Jean Shin was selected as an Artist-in-Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) 2025–2026 AIRIE Fellow.
Hyperallergic covered the ongoing Process In Practice exhibition at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, which runs through Sept. 6 and features work by Pratt Communications Design alumni from both the graduate and undergraduate programs. “From branding and type design to social impact work and fine art, the alumni featured in Process in Practice span the breadth of design’s potential. Their practices cross disciplines and geographies, covering public art in New York, children’s book storytelling in Mexico, type innovation in Bangkok, sustainability in publishing and user experience, and beyond.”
Vice President for Student Affairs Delmy Lendof has been selected to be one of the keynote speakers for the closing session of the 2026 NASPA Student Success Conference. Lendof was also recognized by NASPA Region II for her service to the profession earlier this month.
Pratt Institute’s Communications and Marketing Creative Services team earned third place in Archinect’s Spring ’25 Get Lectured competition for their design of the School of Architecture’s spring 2025 event series poster.
Simran Kaur, MSIXD ’26, received a Graduate Student Engagement Fund (GSEF) award for his project Climate Equity Map NYC.
Tomokazu Matsuyama, MFA Communications Design ’04, is profiled by Puck writer Marion Maneker, who visits Matsuyama’s studio in Greenpoint. “Matsu presented me with an articulate rationale for his syncretic work: Japanese anime-inspired figures inhabiting a world of riotous patterned wallpaper and clothing was an expression of his own sense of being a minority within a very different majority culture. His work is about representation, but within it, he imagines a sophisticated multicultural world where there are no set hierarchies.”
Pin-Up interviews Mark Grattan, BID ’06, in a wide-ranging conversation that explores his love of woodworking, his upcoming Layered collection for HBF Textiles, and his resistance to trends. “I’m not on trend. I’ve always stayed clear of a trend. Stacking and repetition give me comfort. In my eyes, it’s a beautiful thing to repeat a shape. The new collection has a lot of repeating shapes, like marquetry, which I’m working on a lot at the moment.”
From Pratt Institute News
From Pratt Institute News
