All Stories

Two SAIC alumni, Amy Pleasant (BFA 1994) and Phillip Chen (MFA 1979), were named 2018 Guggenheim Fellows by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 

SAIC Professor in the Writing department Jesse Ball has been awarded the Berlin Prize for 2018–19 from the American Academy in Berlin.

The SAIC Historic Preservation Program was well represented at a full day symposium on the specific challenges posed by preservation of recent past resources co-hosted by the Association for Preservation Technology Western Great Lakes Chapter and Docomomo US/Chicago Chapter.

This semester SAIC flexed its power by reducing its energy usage and upping its green initiatives. The School has been recognized by several organizations for its energy minimizing efforts and focus on sustainability.

SAIC continues its year-end events with an exciting line-up for spring and summer.

CCRX is a start up nonprofit organization in the early stages of development.  The organization will address the recycling and redistribution of resources for use in the arts and education sectors.  The project is modeled on several national organizations.  The organization’s leader is a widely respected and admired Chicago arts administrator who has begun research and development for the project.

The MSI team working on this project will help build the organization’s business plan, 501c3 application, fundraising plans, website design, and program concepts.  This was an excellent project for students interested in learning the process of starting a non profit, particularly a larger more complex model which will rely on building and sustaining networks and collaborative programming.  The project also engaged the important social and political questions of environmental issues such as reuse and the social responsibility of the arts in creating sustainable working models.

Inherit Chicago is the first intercultural citywide festival of its kind, happening in October 2017. The month-long festival is happening across 30 neighborhood-based heritage museums and cultural centers and includes exhibitions, performances, culinary events and discussions. The festival is produced by the Chicago Cultural Alliance. 

For this project, the student team worked across the Fall and Spring semesters to help shape and facilitate festival concept design sessions and build collaborative programming ideas with more than 30 member organizations. In the Spring semester, the team worked extensively on the festival branding and to develop the narrative and film elements of the festival's video. Several team members supported the festival production. See links below.