In 2011, SVA won more Type Directors Club Awards than all other institutions combined, claiming 24 out of the 36 awards given for student projects. SVA also took home more TDC Awards than all professional firms in the running. The Type Directors Club is an international organization that promotes excellence in typography and awards are given annually in recognition of outstanding typeface design.
Filmmaker and alumnus Ti West (BFA 2003 Film and Video) recently talked to The New York Times about his creative process and latest writing and directing project, The Innkeepers, which opens February 3. West, a native of Wilmington, Delaware, has attracted notice since his studies at SVA for bringing a contemporary perspective to 1906s-era horror in films like The Roost and The House of the Devil.
Horror director-producer Larry Fessenden said he’s appreciated West’s unique and subtle approach since West interned for him. “Ti is absolutely focused, completely versed in the language of film,” Fessenden said. “He comes from the same school that I come from, which is where you make your film soup to nuts…It’s a real passion for the whole experience.”
The Inkeepers is about a pair of hotel clerks confronted with strange occurrences as they attempt to prove that the hotel is haunted. In the future, West said he hopes to venture into films with bigger budgets while maintaining his personal artistic vision.
To read the complete article, which accompanied by a video interview with the filmmaker and slideshow of his work, visit The New York Times.
Filmmaker, alumnus and MFA Fine Arts Department faculty member Johan Grimonprez’s (MFA 1992 Fine Arts) most recent project, The Shadow World, has been selected for a development grant from the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program. Based on a book of the same name by Andrew Feinstein, a former African National Congress member of parliament in South Africa, the documentary focuses on corruption in the international arms trade, those who profit financially from it, and the costs in human lives.
In addition to the grant, Grimonprez will also receive support from the Sundance Institute that includes work-in-progress screenings, access to creative labs, and special events and activities at the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and Sundance Film Festival. For updates about The Shadow World, which is scheduled for release in 2014, visit Louverture Films.
More than 500 photographs from the personal collection of curator and BFA Photography Department faculty member W.M. Hunt are on display through February 19 at the George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, 900 East Avenue, Rochester, New York. As the name of the exhibition suggests, “The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the W.M. Hunt Collection” is focused on not looking—the eyes of the subjects in each image are never directly fixed upon the viewer, whether due to an averted gaze, positioning of the head or blurring.
“The collection and exhibition represent a very personal journey for me,” says Hunt. “It is my conscious made manifest. These are all photos of me. But they’re all of you, too. They are evocative, whimsical, representational, many things. I love the mystery of it. You have to react, to come to the image, to make up your own story.”
In an effort to support suicide prevention, the Office of Student Health and Counseling Services has a new project underway called “Messages of Hope.” All SVA students, faculty and staff members are invited to create an original, postcard-sized (5-by-7-inch) artwork with the theme of “hope” in mind. The pieces will be exhibited anonymously and then sold from February 10 – 17 at the Westside Gallery, 133/141 West 21 Street. All proceeds will go to Samaritans of New York, a non-profit organization that operates a 24-hour suicide prevention hot line and provides other resources and support for those at risk.
To submit artwork, download a form online at the Samaritans of New York Web site. Pieces can be hand-delivered or sent via messenger to the George Washington Residence, 23 Lexington Avenue, Room 302 up until Friday, January 20 at 4p. For more information, visit the Samaritans of New York.
Image: Gift, submission for “Messages of Hope.” Provided by the Office of Student Health and Counseling Services.
Cheryl Heller, chair of the newly formed MFA Design for Social Innovation Department, is featured in a recent Huffington Post article that discusses the progressive evolution of design thinking. The pioneering program, which begins in September 2012, is identified in the article as evidence of a burgeoning demand to incorporate “positive social (and environmental) outcomes to the design process.”
“[The program] was developed by Cheryl Heller, who helped Seventh Generation [a company that pioneered the concept of product design as a proponent of social innovation] with some of its toughest design challenges and convinced me that this new discipline at SVA was one I should lend a hand to as an advisor,” writer and Seventh Generation Co-founder Jeffrey Hollender said.
He adds that design for social innovation can act as a counterforce to disheartening recent “news about Europe’s impending disintegration, poverty statistics in America…and worse than expected contamination from the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan.”
Heller is also featured in GOOD’s business blog as the second social enterprise leader to be interviewed for a new video series, One Minute Until Impact.
For an interview with Heller about MFA Design for Social Innovation, which is accepting applications for Fall 2012 until January 30, visit Pop!Tech.
Current MFA Design students Lizzy Showman and Kathleen Fitzgerald have created an ideal gift for NYC bus drivers—a customized seat cushion. A video of the students handing out the padded presents to unsuspecting drivers on the M15 line, which runs from East Harlem to South Ferry in Manhattan, was recently featured on CNN iReport and has been making the rounds online. The project, entitled I Heart M15, was conceived by the up-and-coming designers for faculty member Stefan Sagmeister’s course“Can Design Touch Someone’s Heart?”
“Not only is the M15 line the second busiest in the nation, it is also a big part of our own daily commute,” Showman said. “Witnessing the long hours and sometimes hectic atmosphere the M15 bus drivers experience is part of the reason we connected with the bus line and decided to do something to show our appreciation.”
Ali Eng (BFA 2011 Advertising) and Virgillio Tzaj (current student, BFA Advertising and Graphic Design) recently joined forces to form Citizens for Optimism, a team made up of over a dozen up-and-coming designers from the SVA community with the goal of promoting happiness through design. For their debut exhibition at Type Directors Club over the summer, the group asked New Yorkers to provide words they associate with optimism, which were then used as inspiration for the typographically illustrated posters created for the show.
On Friday, December 9 from 6 – 9pm at Brooklyn Collective, 212 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, Citizens for Optimism returns with a new exhibit of positive prints. Included in the show are works by Michelle Alvarez (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Jason Arias (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Julia Coelho (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Phil DiBello (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), Colin Kinsley (BFA 2011 Graphic Design),Alex Kirhzner(BFA 2002 Graphic Design), Devin Washburn (BFA 2011 Graphic Design), and Leen Sadder (current student, MFA Design), as well current BFA Advertising and Graphic Design students Santiago Carrasquilla,Min Choi,Pedro Delkan, Joe Hollier, Aimee Hunt, Pedro Messias, and Rachel Willey.
Members of the SVA community were invited to participate in a recent Lands’ End launch party for the clothing brand’s Spring/Summer 2012 Canvas collection. With a soundtrack provided by Boston pop rockers The Wandas inside the walls of the Highline Stages in New York City’s Meatpacking District, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department faculty member Carl Titolo, alumnus Daniel Fishel (MFA 2011 Illustration as Visual Essay), and current MFA Illustration as Visual Essay students Keith Negley, John Malta and Cecilia Ruiz captivated the fashion-forward crowd with live painting on one of the walls of the giant space. For highlights from the event and more photos, visit District L or Tineey.
Casting a shadow that stretches back more than a century, the Chelsea Hotel on New York City’s 23rd Street has been a haven for artists, writers, and musicians (everyone from Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin to Charles Bukowski and Leonard Cohen have resided there) since opening its doors in 1884 until closing for renovations this past August. Drawn to the history of the legendary landmark, filmmaker Corinne van der Borch (MFA 2009 Photography, Video and Related Media) took her cameras inside, where she captured the story of one its longtime residents, artist Bettina. The result is Girl With Black Balloons, a portrait of a reclusive artist hidden away with her work for decades. The film recently won the Grand Jury Prize in the Metropolis category at the DOC NYC festival, so the Briefs caught up with Borch via email to learn more about the project.
What sparked your fascination with the Chelsea Hotel?
I stayed at the Chelsea Hotel for an evening many years ago and remember wandering the stairwell filled with works of art. Oftentimes I get inspired by a physical object—in this case the cast-iron stairwell, like a backbone winding through this legendary hotel with so many hidden stories.
How did you come across Bettina, and what made you think she would be an interesting subject for a film?
I met Bettina on the staircase…I felt that she was the reason for me to come back with my camera. I wanted to investigate her…Ever since our first encounter on the stairwell I have been struggling to document her adventures, her moods and her surroundings; a rent stabilized, cluttered apartment in the Chelsea Hotel in which she has spent half…of her artist life as a recluse. Bettina has surrounded herself with boxes filled with works of art that have never left her studio. An artist’s quest for acknowledgement can be extremely difficult. Living in the Chelsea Hotel doesn’t necessarily mean fame and certainly not fortune.
How did you seek to portray Bettina’s personality and eccentricity to the audience? Did the two of you have any differences in vision that needed to be worked out?
While shooting, the line of who is in control is constantly crossed. I am not just observing, but actively present throughout the film. I am provocative from time to time, creating uncomfortable moments. What starts off as a game of trust ends up almost as a relationship between a mother and a daughter. I don’t think Bettina had any idea what sort of film I was making. She’s such a great conceptual artist. I don’t think it ever occurred to her I was making something so personal, gentle, humane and confrontational. We share a similar visual sensibility, and [I feel us] both being women made her trust me. Her work ethos is without any compromise. She would call me and yell at me when I was hanging out with friends instead of working! Her work as an artist is without a doubt some of the best work I’ve ever seen. I gave it context with my film.
Do you have any new projects in the works?
I’m currently developing a new project…The title is “The Twin Moms,” a story about 80-year-old identical twin sisters. They speak in stereo and move [synchronously] and are the only black folks on the white side of town, a story about two sides of one track. And I hope in the future I will find a place to start teaching non-fiction filmmaking.
Images: (top) Corrine van der Borch at DOC NYC. (bottom) Screenshot of Bettina from Girl With Black Balloons.
Watch a trailer for Girl With Black Balloons below.
In 2011, SVA won more Type Directors Club Awards than all other institutions combined, claiming 24 out of the 36 awards given for student projects. SVA also took home more TDC Awards than all professional firms in the running. The Type Directors Club is an international organization that promotes excellence in typography and awards are given annually in recognition of outstanding typeface design.
