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The Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD) is pleased to announce the four Fellows who have recently been selected to participate in a year-long, Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship at participating AICAD institutions during the 2018/19 academic year. Additionally, six of the 2017/18 fellows will be continuing in their positions for a second year.
The Fellowship program seeks to provide professional practice opportunities to high-achieving alumni who have recently graduated from AICAD member schools, while also increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of faculty at these institutions. AICAD institutions aspire to create a climate that recognizes and values diversity as central to excellence in art and design education.
AICAD Fellowships include structured and unstructured mentoring and professional development opportunities along with direct teaching experience, health benefits, and other monetary supports.
New Fellows:
Mrinalini Aggarwal (MFA, Installation Art, 2017, San Francisco Art Institute) placed at Pratt Institute. Aggarwal is an artist and arts organizer of Indian origin working at the intersections of architecture, art and design. Her practice is an anti-disciplinary exploration of space that seeks to reconsider the ways in which urban landscapes mediate human relationships.
Genevieve DeLeon (MFA, Painting, 2018, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at Minneapolis College of Art & Design. DeLeon is an artist and poet. Her drawings and paintings have been exhibited at the Tessellate Gallery, Forum Gallery at Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Washington Studio School, and the Yellow Barn Gallery. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Quarterly, Ekphrasis, and Poet Lore.
Olivia Fu (MFA, Illustration, 2018, Maryland Institute College of Art) placed at Oregon College of Art & Craft. Fu is an illustrator, animator, and experimental zine maker. Much of her work addresses womanhood, identity, sexuality, and the absurdity of life. She enjoys incorporating humor and a sense of the surreal in her illustrations. Fu has served as a teaching artist with Groundswell and the New York Historical Society Museum.
Swati Piparsania (MFA, 3D Design, 2018, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at Pratt Institute. Piparsania is an artist and designer from India. She has worked as a material designer, product manager and developer. She works primarily with object design and creates absurd props for performances. Reoccurring themes in her practice include dysfunctional comedy, restrained movements, and narrative studies.
Continuing Fellows:
Victoria Jang (MFA, Ceramics, 2014, California College of the Arts) placed at Maryland Institute College of Art. Jang is a ceramic and mixed media artist. She has recevied numerous fellowships and awards, and she is represented at Patricia Sweetow Gallery.
Bukola Koiki (MFA, Applied Craft + Design, 2015, Oregon College of Art & Craft/Pacific Northwest College of Art Joint MFA) placed at Maine College of Art. Koiki is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in Nigeria and came to study art in the US as a teen. Her work has been included in group exhibitions around the country.
Juan Carlos Rodgriquez (MFA, Communications Design, 2015, Pratt Institute) placed at California College of the Arts. Rodgriquez is a queer latinx visual communicator, passionate about food, lover of gradients and anything with glitter. He is exploring visual language’s flexibility and its role in the acculturation process amongst latinx individuals.
Makia Sharp (MFA, Sculpture, 2017, Rhode Island School of Design) placed at California College of the Arts. Sharp’s work focuses on creating spaces, both physical and metaphorical, for the everyday liminal phenomena such as light and time to be experienced through the intersection of image, form, and architecture.
Latosha Stimage (MFA, Fine Arts/Interdisciplinary Studies, 2016, California College of the Arts) placed at Columbus College of Art & Design: Stimage is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work focuses on disrupting the idea of isolated meaning by using a variety of mediums to examine and reflect on the complexities/limitations inherent in language.
Preston Thompson (MFA, 2D Design, 2017, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at Pratt Institute: Thompson is a graphic designer from Virginia. His studio practice is encouraged by the internet, humor, exclusiveness, cultural parody, exploitation and consumerism.
