A roundup of ideas and projects from around the Institute
Zhenru Yan, BFA Fine Arts (Jewelry) ’21, was featured by Arts Thread as part of the Global Design Graduate Show 2021. In a video story and Q&A, Yan discussed her practice, adapting to the pandemic, and her thesis project The Embodied Metropolis which has pieces inspired by architecture and cities: “In order to demonstrate that future architecture can strengthen the connection between humans, I made jewelry that requires two people to wear it at the same time.”
Professor of Creative Enterprise Leadership (CEL) Christopher Shrum led the research and publication for a recent publication from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on the impact of federal grant funding in Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. The research team included CEL alumni Kapena Alapai, MPS Arts and Cultural Management ’15, Sage Callen, MPS Arts and Cultural Management ’23, and Visiting Assistant Professor of CEL Innocent Ekejiuba.
An exhibition celebrating Pratt School of Architecture’s 70th anniversary was featured in Archinect. The monthlong exhibition showcases the “rather extraordinary contributions Pratt students, alumni, and faculty have bequeathed to the world since 1954.”
Sofi Thanhauser, adjunct associate professor – CCE, was awarded a 2025 Whiting Award for Nonfiction. The Whiting Committee wrote that Thanhauser displays a “uniquely elegant intelligence…[Her] curiosity is a gift to the reader; her sentences are as layered as her investigations, which look with a devoted intensity at the objects around us that might otherwise escape our attention.”
A new exhibition by designer Steve Jensen at London’s Roca Gallery showcases 100 Women: Architects in Practice. The show features work by practitioners profiled in the book, which was edited by Harriet Harriss, professor in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment.
Victoria Forbes, BFA Art and Design Education ’24, has been granted the honor of being the Graduate Speaker for Pratt’s class of 2025 Commencement. She will be acknowledged for this achievement at the Student Affairs Leadership Awards.
Graciela Carrillo, MS Urban Environmental Systems Management ’07, has been elevated to the prestigious College of Fellows by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). This honor recognizes their exceptional contributions to architecture and society. The AIA Fellowship is awarded to architects who have achieved the highest standards of excellence in the profession.
Rodney Leon, BArch ’92, reflected on the 10th anniversary of the unveiling of the Ark of Return, a permanent memorial designed by Leon that honors the victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade at the United Nations. “The memorialization of public space allows often complex and contradictory needs to coexist simultaneously. It must provide space for individual reflection and contemplation of often tragic histories, and at the same time provide a place for collective gathering and celebration.”
A new short documentary about Edel Rodriguez, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’94, is featured in PRINT magazine. Freedom is a Verb, by filmmakers Mecky Creus and Adrienne Hall, “focuses on Rodriguez’s bestselling visual memoir of young life in—and treacherous escape from—Castro’s Cuba.”
Zac Wiczek and Pranav Dawar, both BFA Film ’25, were selected to participate in the summer Byrdcliffe Communal Residency Program.
From Pratt Institute News
From Pratt Institute News
