A roundup of ideas and projects from around the Institute
Pratt students swept the 2022 IESNYC Student Lighting Competition, with Joanne Wu, BID ’24, winning the grand prize; Shuhao Xuanyuan, BID ’25, winning second prize; Mehul Bhargava, BID ’25, winning third prize; and Cass Carl, BID ’24, Hae Ji Nam, BID ’23, Constantina Tzanides, BID ’24, and Siyu Xiao, BID ’24, receiving honorable mentions.
Latoya Kamdang, visiting associate professor of interior design, was featured on NBC’s segment “Positively Black,” which highlighted how she is paving the way for young designers, building on her success.
In collaboration with Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership, Pratt’s Preserving Activism initiative is sponsoring a photography installation in seven Myrtle Avenue storefronts. The installation features student research on Pratt’s summer youth programs and the involvement of the Black Student Union and Horace Williams, Pratt’s first African American Vice-President.
The annual Pratt Shows celebration of creative work by the graduating students has returned to in-person events. Public presentations and exhibitions run from now through May. Explore a schedule of in-person and online happenings, including the weekly Fine Arts and Photography openings at Mondays at Pratt.
Earlier this month, the Brooklyn Public Library presented an event highlighting the Ronald Shiffman collection on the Pratt Center for Community Development at the Center for Brooklyn History. The panel discussion featured Ron Shiffman, professor emeritus in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE), and was moderated by Michael Kimmelman. Read more about the collection on Pratt.edu.
Portlyn Houghton-Harjo, BFA Writing ’25, will read a poem at the April 28 event celebrating the end of Joy Harjo’s three terms as U.S. Poet Laureate. The free event at the Library of Congress will also be livestreamed on YouTube.
Tonight and tomorrow evening (April 11 and 12), Dixon Place in Manhattan is hosting the Performance and Performance Studies program MFA thesis festival. Five members of the class of 2022—Rachel Austin, Kym Bernazky, Lila Klatz, Lizbeth Miscles Rivera, and Stephanie Woods—will be sharing their work.
GAUD students Priyashi Galiawala, Moneesha Kumar, Max Sopher, Man Hin Ivan Yan, Ruying Lu, and Shikai Huang won the first, second, and third prizes in the 2021 Mass Timber Competition. All were students in the Constructing Complexity course led by Professor Cristobal Correa, and they examined new ways to design with mass timber, including innovative fabrication and assembly techniques.
Graduate Communications Design students in the Packaging, Identities and Systems Design Program are developing games related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. See their work @prattgradcomd.
Two exchange students in the Undergraduate Jewelry program in the Department of Fine Arts—Alexandra Moreno of Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design and Abigail Ellen Pontefract of the Glasgow School of Art—reviewed the 45 Stories in Jewelry: 1947 to Now exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design for Art Jewelry Forum.
