New Graduate Cohort
It's always exciting to meet the incoming cohort of graduate students. Here's who has joined the ranks of the SCA with the start of the 2020 fall term. Welcome, everyone!
Mar Alzamora (MA)
Experimentation, poetry, moving image, and my doublebass have always accompanied my life, but after I became a certified Deep Listening practitioner, my creative practice changed drastically. The DL community taught me how to reconnect with the world through sound embodiment. For years, I have dedicated my experimental interdisciplinary practice to the relationship between the city, sound, and memory; my sensory experiences in the city through soundwalks and sonic meditations.
Mozhdeh Bashirian (MA)
My BA degree is in Film Directing and I have some experience in film making — fiction and documentary. I value both, the creative and the theoretical aspects of the arts. The notable disinterest/skepticism toward film theory and postmodernist approaches in Iran, just motivates me more for further study in these fields.
Emily Clarke (MA)
Exploring the influential role of interdisciplinary arts in early education. Examining the features that make involvement with the arts from a young age the most powerful factor to success both in and out of school. By developing programs and creating a foundation that focusses on nurturing artistic ambition and creativity, we can strive to make a lifelong impact.
Doaa Mohammed (MA)
My research interests focus on the exploration of race and female agency in contemporary horror films, and dance as a movement to reclaim cultural identity and dismantle white supremacy within marginalized communities.
Vimeo (password: blm2020)
Alexandra Tsay (MA)
Alexandra Tsay is an independent curator based in Almaty and interested in the conjunction between art and politics, art and memory. She is a founder of Open Mind project that aims to raise critical discussions around contemporary art in Kazakhstan through curated exhibitions and interdisciplinary academic research. Alexandra is interested in independent artistic agency and art practices that challenge the power and create new narratives and discourses in not so open societies of Central Asia. Alexandra is an alumna of University of Warwick.
Emira Ugan (MA)
I am Emira Ugun from Istanbul and a recent graduate of Arts and Cultural Management BA from Istanbul Bilgi University. I am currently working as the creative assistant in Pilot Gallery and as a teacher assistant at Istanbul Bilgi University for the “Exhibition Practice I & II” classes.
Junjie Wang (MA)
I am Junjie Wang from China. I have been learning dance for more than ten years. I am passionate about all art forms. Last year, I conducted research on regional intangible cultural heritage dance, and now I am doing research on dance aesthetic education and dance copyright law.
Katie Hyeseung Yeo (MA)
Katie Hyeseung Yeo completed her BA in cinema studies at Simon Fraser University in 2019. Her research interest lies in the field of media and politics. Specifically, she will examine cinema that deals with political content and survey its role regarding its impact on politics and the public.
Barry Despenza (MFA)
Barry Olusegun-Noble Despenza is a Sound and Video Artist from Chicago Illinois via SF and LA. Barry has sound designed numerous Stage-plays and Musicals across the Bay Area while self producing and splicing together found footage for exhibitions in Times Square, NY, Fringe Arts Bath and UMASS. Sound and expanded cinema are a morphing experiment in which Barry uses language beyond the literal to the abstract. By making use of music’s ability to reach both the inner space (psychological) and outer space (acoustically) Barry collaborates across both mediums while mirroring each other in pursuit of installation and hopefully in more of a sculptural practice.
barryolusegun-nobledespenza.art | digitalcommons.brockport.edu/spectrum/vol3/iss1/9/
Tin Gamboa (MFA)
My artistic practice includes culture, contemporary dance, and interactive spaces. I believe these disciplines nurture work that can spark sustainable and peaceful actions. Currently, I work to include intersections, parallels, positionality, & trauma-based work into my processes, to more clearly and responsibly articulate topics within culture and the arts.
Alice Grassi (MFA)
I am a multimedia artist interest in interdisciplinary and participative projects and I often work in collaboration with artists and collectives. My research is focused on the relationship between humans and territory; for this reason I often work on a site specific basis. I intend my practice as a Soft-Act that triggers a process of change and awareness.
alicegrassi.com | Youtube | Vimeo
Deborah Harman (MFA)
I am an Artist exploring experimental Documentary forms and their capacity to search for deeper more embodied human experiences. I am interested in Pyschogeography, Dance and embodiment of media used to explore land, the ocean and its stories. My projects consider Space and Place theory, Art and Wellbeing and Transcendentalism.
docu-raw-deb.tumblr.com | debbieharman.com
Homa Khosravi (MFA)
Painter from Iran, Tehran. Studied painting at Tehran University. My paintings are mostly about nature, plants, animals and human bodies, specifically the female body and human organs. I do photography and collages as well, about the same subjects.
Katie Kozak (MFA)
I am an artist of Métis and Ukrainian descent. My Art Practice blends visual art, science, and wellness evolving from a longstanding interest in biology, alternative medicine and therapeutic rituals. While my practice has always encompassed a deep connectivity to land, I have only recently begun to understand it as a way to process both the loss of my father and the loss of a piece of my cultural identity.
Silas Ng (MFA)
Silas Ng is an emerging artist based on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. His photography and multi-disciplinary works explore his life experience and identities as Deaf Canadian-born Chinese to discover how his life was weaved by the three different worlds.
Jami Reimer (MFA)
My practice explores musical sound, particularly as it relates to movement and the exploration of spaces. I am interested in composing with field recordings, electronic sounds, and voice. I hope to draw on a cross-disciplinary interest in dance and somatic studies in the creation of new musical work for stage and/or other place-based environments.
Matthew Toffoletto (MFA)
matthew toffoletto (he/him) is a composer, writer, theater creator, and sound artist from Houston, Texas. his work focuses on the sonification of language and poetry, in integration with musical materials and processes. he’s interested in medieval/renaissance music, instruments, and texts and process-based, polyphonic, and masse-form materials.
matthewtoffoletto.wordpress.com/about
Katayoon Yousefbigloo (MFA)
Through video, music, writing and visual art I examine how media shapes our mythologies. Reverse engineering narratives, I use speculative fiction as a framework through which to imagine alternate realities and their commercial potentials. Unrelatedly, I am pursuing franchise opportunities for my musical project Puzzlehead.
katayoonyousefbigloo.com/Telstar-12
