A roundup of ideas and projects from around the Institute
For the final week of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, artist and illustrator Nicole Rifkin, BFA Communications Design (Illustration) ’14, contributed cover art for The New Yorker depicting a reflective, intimate moment of self-presentation and pride: “When I was at Pratt, I visited Desert Island, a gallery/store where I first saw the work of Charles Burns, Jordan Crane, Adrian Tomine, and the Hernandez brothers … I became deeply immersed in those comics, and in finding unique ways of telling stories.”
Annabelle Selldorf, BArch ’85, and Pratt Trustee Mickalene Thomas, BFA Fine Arts ’00, were named among Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2025.” For more than two decades, the TIME100 list has highlighted the artists, icons, leaders, and innovators that are shaping our present day. Annie Liebovitz writes that Selldorf’s work “embodies the values she holds dear. Art and life are not separate.” About Thomas, Alicia Keys says that “she’s constantly creating new lanes, breaking boundaries, and exceeding expectations.”
Mark Reyes, BFA Film ’20, announced that two of his films will be screening at the Fantaspoa Film Festival in Brazil. “WOW! What an Honor! TALES FROM THE END will be making its INTERNATIONAL premiere alongside my brand new short THE NIGHTWALKER being shown for the first time ever as its WORLD PREMIERE!!!,” Reyes wrote on social media.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing Benjamin Krusling was awarded a 2025 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Of over 900 submissions, three manuscripts were chosen for publication. Krusling’s manuscript Fear of God Essentials “narrate the goings-on of a sticky, discomfiting city, one in which the speaker witnesses a parade of delights and atrocities as they cohere in the present—the Cybertruck on Nostrand Avenue, the Candy Crush–playing cops in the subway station, the subversive humor of living in an era of upheaval,” write Emily Bark Brown and Gia Gonzales.
Thomas Klinkowstein, adjunct professor – CCE of graduate communications design, will be conducting an art project on a sub-orbital space flight with Virgin Galactic in 2027. As part of his year-long research leading up to lift-off, he has been facilitating creative workshops with students in the US and abroad. At Yonsei University in South Korea, Klinkowstein taught speculative design students a “Synthetic Memories” workshop, which involved using ChatGPT to predict their future careers, and creating a design responding to their results. In Pennsylvania, he ran a “Space Art Challenge,” in which middle school students created triptychs around the theme of “space as place, space as persona, and space as idea.”
Laura Kim, BFA Fashion Design ’04, was profiled in The Cut in a piece that explores her professional relationship with Fernando Garcia, with whom she directs Oscar de la Renta. “They’ve held their jobs at Oscar for nearly a decade, a lifetime in this business, by saying ‘yes.’ Yes to almost every major celebrity, yes to Trumpworld and the Resistance Dems, and yes to an advertising campaign for a smart toilet.”
Adjunct Associate Professor of Graduate Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design Carisima Koenig spoke on inclusive environments and trauma-informed design at the North Atlantic Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) conference. Read more at the School of Architecture News.
A paper by Saille Caia Murray, MSLIS ’25, titled “Deconstructing Christian Supremacy and Inviting the Orisha into the Library: Creating Diverse Religious Collections in Academic Libraries,” was accepted to the 2025 Critical Pedagogy Symposium: Decentering the West (June 10–12).
Donni Davy, BFA Photography ’10, was interviewed by PopSugar for her work as a Hollywood makeup artist. “Makeup communicates so much to the audience,” she said. “It’s extra info; a storytelling tool.”
Pratt alumna Anna Park, who studied Illustration and Fine Arts, became the youngest artist on Lehmann Maupin’s gallery roster and profiled by ArtDrunk.
From Pratt Institute News
From Pratt Institute News
