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Kristine Thompson’s Work Featured in Exhibition at Loyola University in Chicago – and More!

Art & Design, Honors & Awards, Events, Art, Photography, Exhibitions, Faculty, ,

Kristine Thompson, assistant professor of photography in the LSU School of Art, has work featured in the current exhibition, Continuum, at the Ralph Arnold Gallery at Loyola University in Chicago.

The exhibition, curated by Naritaka Minami, features the work of four contemporary photographers who utilize analog photographic processes. Thompson’s project, Images Seen to Images Felt, is an ongoing series of photograms made by pressing light-sensitive photographic paper on the screen of a computer inside a dark room. They are direct impressions of contemporary images that Thompson has collected from a range of online news sources. She performs this process in order to transform photographs that exist in virtual space into tangible objects that viewers confront in the physical space of the gallery. This camera-less image-making process turns the digital images into ghostly presences that encourage viewers to slow down in analyzing the loss and violence depicted.

In his essay about the exhibition, Minami charts the decline of analog processes for many photographers as digital technology has evolved. He organized the exhibition in order to show how contemporary artists continue to innovate these older processes and materials. “Photography’s past that was quickly abandoned by the market has been salvaged by artists in ways that challenge existing ideas of the medium and propose new possibilities in its uses.”

Thompson’s photograms were also included in the Joyce Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition at Texas Women’s University’s art gallery in January. Dr. Julia Dolan, the Minor White photography curator at the Portland Art Museum, selected Thompson to receive the exhibition’s top award, which will result in a solo exhibition at TWU’s art gallery in 2018. Kristine also recently participated in the Louisiana Biennial Exhibition at Louisiana Tech University’s School of Design. Rachel Cook from Diverseworks, Houston, juried the exhibition. Thompson’s series, Difficult Things Seen Cannot Be Unseen, received the juror’s choice award.

Thompson also collaborated with Assistant Professor Johanna Warwick on the exhibition We Live in the Gaps between the Stories. In the exhibition, the artists utilize new images and materially re-contextualize them to emphasize the limitations of photography as a complete record of the time. Both artists combine analog and digital processes to underscore the ways in which news photographs have been produced and how that production affects our understanding of cultural history. The exhibition premiers in Missoula, Montana, in April 2017, and will travel to Artspace Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, this summer.

Visit artsevents.luc.edu for more information about Continuum and joyceelainegrant.com/2017 for more information about the Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition at TWU.

Student Profile: Katharina Beliveau, BID 2017

Students, Interior Design, ,

katharina beliveauKatharina Beliveau, a fourth-year student in the LSU School of Interior Design, is busy: busy preparing her capstone project before graduating in December; as a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard; as a sorority member of Delta Gamma; and, as an army qualified linguist, she works as a translator for the military and for individual companies on the side.

Katharina came to LSU from New Hampshire on a scholarship for band. During her first year, she played tuba for the Golden Band from Tiger Land and got to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin.

“I was one of only four girls in the 31-person tuba section,” she recalled.

For much of her childhood, Katharina lived abroad. Her father met her mother, a German native, while he was in the U.S. Army. Later, the family was stationed in Mannheim, Germany, for seven years. Katharina said her experience living outside of the United States helped her choose her major and, to this day, informs her design work.

Initially, Katharina thought she wanted to major in journalism, but within the first year of study, she realized it wasn’t the right fit.

“I was racking my brain trying to figure out what I should do instead when my roommate pointed out it was pretty obvious—I would spend my spare time looking at houses and saying how I would change them. So I looked up interior design at LSU and spoke with Instructor John Campbell. Then I looked back on my time in Germany, at how clean, concise, and efficient everything was, and I imagined being a part of that.”

Katharina changed her major to interior design and never looked back—even though it meant she had to give up band due to scheduling conflicts with her design studios.

Now, in her final year of study at LSU, Katharina is working on her senior capstone project, a semester-long assignment that requires students to accumulate everything they’ve learned in the past four years. This year, students were encouraged to incorporate universal design principles in their final projects. Visiting scholar Edward Steinfeld, professor, architect, gerontologist, and the 2016–17 Nadine Carter Russell Chair in Interior Design, is an expert in this field and is working with students throughout the semester to increase their knowledge of inclusive design. Katharina’s volunteer work with Delta Gamma also played a role in helping her select a focus for her capstone project. Every week, Delta Gamma visits the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired, participating in activities and forging relationships with the children there.

“You realize the limitations of the blind and how universal design and interior design can make their lives easier,” noted Katharina.

Her capstone project was also inspired by a documentary on boarding schools that she viewed on a German news station. “The documentary emphasized the interweaving of staff, teachers, and students—their family-like relationships and high amount of active time spent outdoors,” she recalled. “For my capstone project, I chose to apply that concept, also incorporating meditation and counseling, to the American foster care system.”

Katharina’s project proposes an alternative education solution for foster children; “think boarding school meets home schooling,” she explained. “Typically, foster children end up being forced to move every six to eight months, which takes an immense toll on their education; 75 percent of foster care children function below their current grade level and only two percent ever attain a bachelor’s degree. By creating a school that eliminates the stress of constantly being moved, interior design can create a better learning environment for those in foster care.”

Interior design seniors will present their final projects to a jury of professionals and peers at the end of the semester. Katharina said she remains interested in residential design and wants to move to Los Angeles after she completes her military training. When asked what drives her the most, Katharina said it’s the word no.

“Never take no for an answer; there’s always a way around it. I was told I couldn’t get a band scholarship playing tuba. I was told I wouldn’t be able to afford tuition at an out-of-state university. Every time someone says no, it’s like a challenge to me.”

Alumni Spotlight: Meredith Hom, BID 2010

Art & Design, Interior Design, Alumni, Alumni Profiles, , ,

Meredith Hom’s interest in interior design started with her love of Disney.

“Disney World was practically a second home for me growing up. As soon as I was old enough to understand there was a group of people responsible for creating, designing, and building these parks, I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be an ‘imagineer’ and design spaces that could transport people into other worlds.”

Meredith earned her degree in interior design from LSU and interned at HKS, but she sought more opportunities to hone her skills using design. She thought production design might be a better route.

Seeking advice on how to get into the field, she wrote letters to more than 100 production designers. Several wrote back and agreed to meet with her, and one helped her get a job in Atlanta as a production assistant in the art department of the Footloose remake. She loved working on the movie, and decided to look further into a career in film. A colleague suggested she apply for the PIXAR production internship. She got into the program and worked in the art department on the Cars and Toy Story cartoons. Her internship set her on the production management track.

Meredith has worked in multiple departments at PIXAR, including art, editorial, characters (model, rigging, and shading), and lighting. To date, she has been involved in the production of seven shorts, one TV special (The Toy Story that Time Forgot), and two feature animations, Finding Dory and Coco, PIXAR’s new, “Day of the Dead” themed 3D animation to be released later this year.

“My interior design degree has been helpful as I work with artists and technical directors,” shared Meredith. “Because of my time in the LSU interior design program, I have a solid understanding of the design language.”

Looking to the future, Meredith says she tries not to plan too far ahead. “Life has a way of taking you in directions you didn’t plan. When I attended LSU and got into the interior design selective admissions program, I would have never thought that 10 years later I’d be working as a department manager at PIXAR—my dream company.”

Photography and Spanish Major Vernell Dunams Receives LSU Discover Scholar Award

Art & Design, Students, Research, Art, Photography, , ,

vernell dunamsVernell Dunams is one of five students across the university to be named a 2017 LSU Discover Scholar for his research achievements.

Each year, LSU Discover awards the top undergraduate research students with the Discover Scholar Award. Recipients receive a $1,000 travel stipend and are promoted at LSU Discover Day.

Vernell, a third-year LSU student majoring in Spanish and studio arts with a focus in photography, fell in love with language as a child attending a Montessori school in New Orleans. “We had to learn romance languages and English simultaneously, which sparked my interest in Spanish,” he recalled. He continued his education at an arts-oriented high school, where he worked in two-dimensional visual arts, mostly printmaking, which led him to explore alternative processes and, as he put it, “the switch from printmaking to photography was kind of natural.”

He chose to attend LSU due to its proximity to his hometown and its reputation in studio arts and foreign language studies. Vernell said he works mostly in the fine arts side of photography, and his work is conceptual and often involves research.

His ongoing research was initiated in Assistant Professor Kristine Thompson’s course, “Special Topics in Photography: Artist as Researcher.” In the course, students are asked to think of themselves as researchers in order to engage in an informed, extended project over the semester. Research methods and contemporary artists who use them are introduced; strategies are discussed for working through difficulties in ideas or technical processes; and regular group critiques help move the projects from initial inspiration to exhibition-ready.

“I am incredibly proud of Vernell and how his work has grown over the past year,” Thompson averred. “His ambition, level of experimentation, sense of craft, and ability to pick the best material form for his ideas are exceptional.”

The photo book Vernell created in Thompson’s class became the first in a conceptual, bilingual series that juxtaposes Shakespearean literature with contemporary social themes. His primarily black-and-white photography is interspersed with his personal experiences in an uninhibited flow that often variates from English to Spanish mid-sentence.

“I do a lot of automatic text,” explained Vernell. “Sometimes it comes off as poetry, but it’s really me writing from stream-of-consciousness—contemplative text related to personal experiences. But the point of it is I’m trying to reach this point of my brain where it’s not being censored, text at its truest form.”

Vernell’s first book, If You Please: A Contemporary Exploration of Attraction, focuses on gender and denotes Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” He is currently working on completing a second photo book, LIS’N (La Importancia de Ser Negro): A Modern Memoir from the Transracial, begun in Assistant Professor Johanna Warwick’s advanced photography studio, in which he focuses on the “social experience of being colored in contemporary society.”

In If You Please, inspired by Ganymede/Rosalind from “As You Like It,” Vernell writes:

I apologize to you my viewer because my skin will never spawn fur, and because of that my body will never comfort you. My skin will always be cold. My collar bone will cut your cheek if you attempt to rest it there . . . Me cansaré un día. Un día cuando todos mis huesos son rotos.

[I’ll get tired one day. One day when all my bones are broken.]

When I have let the last lover break me, I will leave. I cannot be the object that I have been since I was a child, forever . . . One day the mountains will be my grave and the sea will have been my cradle and that is the day that I will tire from the cracking of los huesos de la espalda. Este día voy a vivir por una segunda y voy a morir por años.

[I will tire from the cracking of my back bones. On this day I will live for a second and I will die for year.]

Vernell received the LSU Discover Scholar Award for his proposed third book, titled Toumai Words: Songs of Your Primordial Ancestor, in which he will explore sexuality and the experience of being male, with Shakespeare’s Hamlet as his literary inspiration. This third book will also be part of Vernell’s Ogden Honors College thesis, advised by Thompson.

“I love the ways that languages change,” stated Vernell. “That’s actually part of my research. Something about that evolution of language fascinates me to no extent, the desire to connect to something culturally but also the science behind the language.”

Also a recent recipient of the LSU School of Art’s Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Distinguished Scholarship for the Arts, Vernell plans to use those funds and his Discover Scholar Award to offset his travel to Madrid, Spain, next fall, where he will begin his third book and get a head-start on his plans for after graduation—to attend graduate school for Spanish and/or photography.

“Gender, race, and sexuality are the core concerns that recur in Vernell’s projects, and I have seen him visually explore these issues in increasingly sophisticated and nuanced ways,” shared Thompson. “Writing the photo books as bilingual and referencing well-known literary text or characters widens his audience for the work, which helps them understand more of his personal narrative in the process. I know that Vernell’s semester in Spain will be transformative, and I can’t wait to see how it will help shape his thesis project.”

Meanwhile, Vernell continues his studies in photography and Spanish and spends his spare time as the photo director for LSU’s chapter of Spoon University, an everyday online food resource where college students can find recipes and the best restaurants around campus.

“As a student, Vernell is also invested in the work of his peers,” added Thompson. “It’s heartening for me to see that kind of community and camaraderie develop in the classroom; it helps to continually raise the bar in our class critiques and discussions.”

On April 4, 2017, LSU Discover will host the fourth annual LSU Discover Day undergraduate research and creative endeavors symposium. Students from all disciplines and colleges at LSU will compete in the poster, oral presentation, or visual display competitions, which will be judged by LSU faculty and staff. All LSU Discover Day events and presentations are free and open to the public.
For more information about the LSU Discover and for a schedule of LSU Discover Day events, visit discover.lsu.edu.

Thomas Woodard: Future City Mentor

Students, Community Outreach, Architecture, ,

Thomas Woodard (right) and the Louisiana Future City winning team: Scotalndville Middle

LSU School of Architecture undergrad mentors Scotlandville Middle School students, helping them win Louisiana’s Future City design competition

Fifth-year LSU School of Architecture undergraduate Thomas Woodard recently served as a mentor to Louisiana’s 2017 Future City winning team, Scotlandville Middle School.

Future City is a project-based learning program where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future. The competition requires teams to deliver a five-part project that includes a project plan; a SimCity design of a virtual city; a 1,500-word essay describing the unique attributes of their chosen city; a scale model of a section of the city; and a seven-minute presentation on the city’s features and solutions to its challenges.

Students generate ideas and execute projects with the help of educators and mentors who serve as team advisors, share expertise, and help the students develop important career-building skills. Last year, Brenda Nixon, regional coordinator of Louisiana Future City, reached out to LSU College of Art & Design Dean Alkis Tsolakis, who suggested Thomas Woodard as a potential mentor. Thomas was placed to serve as a mentor for Ms. Ingrid Cruz’s robotics class at Scotlandville Middle, a pre-engineering magnet school.

Thomas, president of the LSU chapter of the National Organization of Minority Student Architects, or NOMAS, was in the perfect position to serve as a Future City mentor—community service and mentoring youth are key aspects and goals of the organization. He also recently traveled to Singapore to present one of the LSU School of Architecture’s entries in the 2016 Designing Resilience in Asia international competition. His team received honorable for their proposal to improve the resiliency of a section of the Polo River, located on the outskirts of Manila in the Philippines. Thomas suggested the Scotlandville Middle School team focus on a coastal city with similar sustainability challenges. The team of five students selected Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as their future city. Their project addressed coastal sustainability issues such as water pollution and subsidence.

“At first, they didn’t understand the connection of architecture and coastal issues,” said Thomas, “but they caught on quickly. They’re like sponges—I could tell them anything and they’d soak it up.”

With a budget of only $100, their options for modeling materials were limited. Thomas suggested they paint and re-use leftover Legos from their robotics class to build their model.

“Once the students realized they could use the modified Legos for their model, everyone lit up,” recalled Thomas. “Our team went completely outside the box, which helped us stand out in the competition.”

future city

Scotlandville Middle School students’ Future City model of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Scotlandville Middle School was the only Louisiana team to choose such a large city, and their model reflected the complications of their choice. Most models were built at the 1:64 scale; Scotlandville Middle’s model was designed at the 1:300 scale, depicting all of Rio’s unique features—ocean, city, and mountains.

Louisiana teams presented their work to a panel of jurors at the LSU College of Art & Design on January 18. Professor Max Conrad of the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture served as one of the jurors along with other designers and engineers. Scotlandville Middle placed first in the competition—quite a feat as many of the teams, which included private and charter schools, had larger budgets and fancier resources. Future City provided the winning team with round-trip transportation and accommodation for three student presenters, their educator, and their mentor to present their project at the national level in Washington, D.C.

Thomas said he thoroughly enjoyed working with the students and is even considering teaching now as his career. “The sky is the limit for these students. It’s so rewarding watching them learn and grow. I want to remain a part of that.”

Visit futurecity.org for more information about the Future City Competition and architecture.lsu.edu for more information about the LSU School of Architecture.

Kevin Risk and Tom Sofranko Speak at the International Symposium on Chinese Vernacular Architecture

Art & Design, Research, Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Faculty, , ,

LSU’s Kevin Risk and Tom Sofranko were invited speakers at the 21st International Symposium on Chinese Vernacular Architecture.

Risk, an associate professor of the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, presented a paper focused on his research on Rowan Oak, William Faulkner’s four-acre estate in Oxford, Mississippi. The paper, “Interpretation/Preservation of William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak: Narrative, Gender, Region,” explores the relationship between fictive place-making and physical space-making at Rowan Oak. Using Faulkner’s hand-drawn map of Yoknapatawpha County, typological themes from his fictional works, and site mappings as bases for speculative analysis, Risk investigates the phenomenological influence of Rowan Oak on the imagining of Faulkner’s fictive world and the influence his fictive world had on the shaping of Rowan Oak. The landscape of Rowan Oak served as both creative muse and experiential medium during Faulkner’s greatest period of literary productivity (1930–62) and can be read as a phenomenological microcosm of his fictive world, reflecting recurring themes of his narrative works and the poly-vocal nature of his fiction.

“It was fascinating to see in person the sometimes jarring juxtapositions between new urbanist projects (virtually new cities) and traditional Chinese architecture and landscapes and the efforts to preserve and document vernacular heritage even as it is rapidly disappearing in China,” Risk remarked.

Sofranko, professor of the LSU School of Architecture and associate dean of the LSU College of Art & Design, presented his research on the legacy of vernacular studies at LSU. The university has had a foundational role and a long history in establishing the field of study of vernacular architecture in the United States. First identified by Fred Kniffen, whose career at LSU went from 1929–1970, the state of Louisiana has proven to be an excellent laboratory for looking at vernacular building techniques. From indigenous people to Spanish and French explorers to the various settlers who developed the state, many different groups have come to and through Louisiana, bringing building techniques based on their origins. Sofranko discusses specific influences from Acadian and Caribbean people and looks at how their ideas were adapted to the Louisiana climate and geography. His conclusions discuss what is currently happening at LSU and in the state to preserve what we know about the first and earliest inhabitants and their building techniques.

As part of the conference, Risk and Sofranko visited a number of historic vernacular landscapes, including Chairman Mao’s birthplace and a traditional Hunan fishing village that has been revitalized as a heritage site. They also visited the city of Changsha, the regional capital of Hunan Province; the ancient Confucian campus of Yuelu Academy; and contemporary urbanist projects by Zaha Hadid and others.

“This wasn’t a trip; this was a journey,” noted Sofranko. “There was great interest in what we had to say about Louisiana and the South in general. We’re hopeful we made some connections that will result in future intellectual and academic sharing.”

Darius Spieth Delivers Talk on Percier and Publishes Book Chapter on Vieille

Art & Design, Research, Publications, Art History, Art, Faculty, Doctor of Design,

Darius A. Spieth, professor of art history at the LSU School of Art, recently delivered a talk at Bard College on Napoleon’s interior architect Charles Percier and published a book chapter on French sociologist Paul Vieille.

charles percier

A spread from Charles Percier’s and Pierre Fontaine’s Collection of Interior Designs: Everything that Relates to Furniture (Recueil de décoration intérieure concernant tout ce qui a rapport à l’ameublement), 1801-1812, engraving, from the LSU Library collection with an anonymous watercolor drawing of a vase, presumably by a student. (Photo by William Judson)

The symposium, titled “Charles Percier: Antiquity and Empire,” was organized by the graduate center of Bard College in New York City. Percier was Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte’s architect of choice, and his designs were widely published during his lifetime and re-edited throughout most of the 19th century. The remodeling of the Malmaison near Paris, commissioned by the Bonapartes and now a public museum, is one of Percier’s best known contributions. Delivered in conjunction with a major exhibition, Charles Percier: Architecture and Design in an Age of Revolutions, at the Bard Graduate Center, Spieth’s talk mostly focused on the influence of the 18th-century Italian printmaker Piranesi on Percier’s designs and their subsequent international dissemination as pattern books. A recording of the symposium can be viewed on the Bard Graduate Center’s website, bgc.bard.edu/events/48/18-nov-2016-percier.

paul vieille

Paul Vieille and Evelyne Accad on Montmartre, summer 1997 (Photo by Darius Spieth)

Spieth also contributed a chapter to a book published in commemoration of French sociologist Paul Vieille (1922–2010). The book, Méditerranée, Mondialisation, Démocratisation: Hommage à Paul Vieille, appeared in early March at the prestigious Parisian publishing house, Geuthner, located in the Quartier Latin. Spieth’s chapter, which is based on recollections of personal interactions with Vieille and his partner, feminist author Evelyne Accad—first at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Chapaign, and later during visits in Paris—highlights aspects of Vieille’s thoughts about the interrelationship of post-modernism and the imagination. Visit geuthner.com for more information on Méditerranée, Mondialisation, Démocratisation: Hommage à Paul Vieille.

LSU Graphic Design Students Bring Home 28 ADDYs, Including Best in Show

Art & Design, Students, Art, Graphic Design, , ,
2017 addys

2017 ADDYs Awards Gala (From left: Brian Rivet, Cassidy Day, Luisa Restrepo Perez, Tory Cunningham, and Courtney Barr)

LSU graphic design students and the Graphic Design Student Office stole the show, bringing home 28 student awards, including best in show, at the 2017 Baton Rouge American Advertising Federation’s awards gala.

The Graphic Design Student Office earned six of the 28 awards—two golds, one special judge award, and three silvers. GDSO operates within the LSU School of Art, much like a small design firm, providing professional design services for local community organizations and university departments while students gain valuable, real-world experience and build their portfolios—and win awards! This year’s ADDY award-winning projects included a special judge award and gold award for the publication design of the book Janice Sachse: A Retrospective; a gold award for the LSU College of Art & Design’s 2015-16 Annual Report; and silver awards for special event materials (Elements, a brochure promoting the LSU School of Art’s exhibitions and lecture series), magazine publication design (the LSU Foundation’s summer and fall 2016 issue of Cornerstone), and single illustration (for the LSU Police canine unit).

The junior graphic design class taught by Associate Professor Courtney Barr and Instructor Luisa Restrepo Perez, received a student silver award for their class project, Experimental Alphabet. The remaining bevy of awards were brought home by individual graphic design students (see complete list below).

Gold student award winners’ work will be entered in the district level competition. Last year, LSU School of Art senior Brandon Coffee’s short film, Kevin & Bert, moved up through the ranks after winning a gold student award; he ended up winning a student gold award in the national 2016 American Advertising Awards competition in the animation and special effects category.

This stunning amount of student awards shows the high level of expertise of LSU School of Art graphic design students. In 2016, the LSU School of Art was ranked by Animation Career Review as one of the top five graphic design programs in the South (in the top three percent of schools considered) and 25th among public schools and colleges (in the top five percent of schools considered).

Students and faculty advisors attended the awards gala at L’auberge Casino & Hotel in Baton Rouge on March 4, 2017, to celebrate their success.

STUDENT BEST OF SHOW OVERALL

Minted Mark
Entrant: Cassidy Day

STUDENT SPECIAL JUDGE’S AWARDS

Logo Design
Cajun Paws Rescue Logo
Entrant: Abigayle Brewer

Out-of-Home – Poster – Single
101 Dalmations Re-Release Poster
Entrant: Carlin Mumphrey

Publication Design – Book Design
Janice Sachse: A Retrospective
Entrant: Graphic Design Student Association
Credits: Luisa Restrepo Perez, creative director; Rod Parker, faculty advisor; Amy Blacketter & Bo Kim, designers; Kitty Pheney, project director

STUDENT GOLD

Printed Annual Report or Brochure
Annual Report 2015-16
Entrant: Graphic Design Student Office
Credits: Rod Parker & Courtney Barr, faculty advisors; Luisa Restrepo Perez, creative director; Kitty Pheney, project director; Alec Gaschen, designer

Printed Annual Report or Brochure
COA+D Annual Report 14-15 Redesign
Entrant: Gabe Hilliard

Publication Design – Book Design
Portfolio 2016
Entrant: Tina Korani, MFA candidate
Credits: Tina Korani, designer; Courtney Barr, faculty advisor

Website – Desktop or Mobile
Culinary Carivan Website
Entrant: Gabe Hilliard

Website – Desktop or Mobile
Carlin Mumphrey Portfolio Site
Entrant: Carlin Mumphrey
Credits; Vivid Dream Photography, photography and videography

Illustration – Single
Worn Faces
Entrant: Carline Mumphrey

Integrated Brand Identity Campaign
Minted Mark
Entrant: Cassidy Day

Publication Design – Book Design
Janice Sachse: A Retrospective
Entrant: Graphic Design Student Office
Credits: Luisa Restrepo Perez, creative director; Rod Parker, faculty advisor; Amy Blacketter & Bo Kim, designers; Kitty Pheney, project director

Out-of-Home – Poster – Single
101 Dalmations Re-Release Poster
Entrant: Carlin Mumphrey

Logo Design
Cajun Paws Rescue Logo
Entrant: Abigayle Brewer

STUDENT SILVER

Product or Service Sales Promotion – Packaging
Pure Berry Granola Packaging
Entrant: Carlin Mumphrey

Printed Annual Report or Brochure
Kidline Brochure
Entrant: Abigayle Brewer
Credits: Abigayle Brewer, designer; Cassidy Gwaltney, Kidline logo designer

Special Event Materials
Elements
Entrant: Graphic Design Student Office
Credits: Rod Parker & Courtney Barr, faculty advisors; Kitty Pheney, project director; Luisa Restrepo Perez, creative director; Tory Cunningham, designer

Special Event Materials
Experimental Alphabet
Entrant: LSU Graphic Design Class
Credits: LSU graphic design junior class; Luisa Restrepo Perez & Courtney Barr, faculty advisors

Publication Design – Magazine
Cornerstone Summer & Fall 2016
Entrant: Graphic Design Student Office
Credits: Tory Cunningham, design and art direction; Courtney Barr & Luisa Restrepo Perez, faculty advisors

Publication – Book Design
[HOMO] FORMICIDAE
Entrant: Hayden Nagin

Magazine Advertising Single – Full Page or Less
Pure Berry Print Advertisement
Entrant: Carlin Mumphrey

Out-of-Home – Poster – Single
Speak Out
Entrant: Abigayle Brewer

Out-of-Home – Poster – Campaign
Greek Deities
Entrant: Abigayle Brewer

Logo Design
Firefly
Entrant: Cassidy Day

Logo Design
Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge
Entrant: Hayden Nagin

Illustration – Single
USPCA – LSU Police
Entrant: Graphic Design Student Office
Credits: Tory Cunningham, designer; Kitty Pheney, project director; Luisa Restrepo Perez, creative director

Illustration – Campaign
Perceptions & Distortions
Entrant: Austin Arceneaux

Animation or Special Effects
Man on Wire Title Sequence
Entrance: Lindsey Chaplain

Professor’s Research Visualizes the Lasting Demographic and Landscape Implications of Slavery

Research, Landscape Architecture, Faculty, Doctor of Design, ,

Kevin RiskLSU’s Kevin Risk presented his paper, “Cotton River, Market Town: Preserving/Interpreting the Landscape(s) of Slavery at Forks-of-the-Road,” at the 2016 Association for Preservation Technology (APT) Conference in San Antonio, Texas. The theme of the conference was Preserving Heritage with Tomorrow’s Technology.

Risk, an associate professor of the LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture, applies his research on the cross-cultural transmission, hybridization, and adaptation of garden forms and ideology from Old to New World landscapes on the preservation of regional cultural landscapes, emphasizing the roles of myth, memory, and historical narrative in the interpretation and design of multilayered historic sites.

As part of the Cultural Landscapes: Patterns and Palimpsests track at the 2016 APT conference, Risk discussed the work conducted in his 2013 graduate-level studio, which focused on research and interpretive planning for Forks-of-the-Road, the historic slave market site in Natchez, Mississippi. Historically the second largest slave market in the South after New Orleans, slaves were brought in for sale via overland routes along the Natchez Trace as well as by boat from New Orleans. Through mappings and visualizations, the studio sought to interpret the complex web of the site’s connections at the local, regional, and national scale. Risk and his students worked with community activists and personnel from the Natchez National Historical Park to develop a range of multi-scale interpretive and conceptual design strategies that present and interweave narratives of slavery at the regional, city, and site scale, focusing on the natural and cultural resources associated with the site as well as the broader intersecting (or nested) narratives within the local urban and rural agricultural landscapes.

The resulting research demonstrates the possibilities for interpreting the landscape of slavery in a richer, more complex manner by focusing not just on the individual site of controversy but on the complex and shifting web of landscape associations: urban and rural, local and national, designed and vernacular, public and private, familiar and contested. Through ongoing mappings and visualizations, Risk continues to expand the research and interpretive potential of the original studio work and the “nested narratives” methodology in visualizing the lasting demographic and landscape implications of slavery in Natchez, the Forks-of-the-Road site, and—more broadly—the Southern landscape.

Visit design.lsu.edu/faculty/risk-kevin for more about Risk and his research or landscape.lsu.edu for information about the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture.

Professor Jun Zou Receives 2016-17 CCELL Happy Award

Students, Interior Design, Honors & Awards, Community Outreach, Faculty, ,

Jun ZouJun Zou, associate professor of the LSU School of Interior Design, received a 2016-17 Happy Award from the LSU Center for Community Engagement, Learning & Leadership. CCELL bestows this award annually to celebrate the accomplishments of those who have gone above and beyond in the field of service-learning.

Zou was honored for incorporating service-learning opportunities into her design studios. Most recently, Zou’s spring 2016 interior design studio worked with the community of St. James Place in Baton Rouge to create programming and designs for four senior living spaces. Janet Dewey and Cori Lanclos, assisted living counselor and life enrichment manager at St. James, attended the students’ mid-term and final reviews to offer feedback and select five projects that were presented to St. James Place administrators and President and CEO Tom Farrell.

“This was an interesting interactive project for us, and the students’ work was great on many levels,” Dewey remarked. “They got a dose of reality thinking about what they’d want for their own parents and grandparents.”

The studio project was of particular interest to Zou, whose research investigates senior living solutions for the United States and China, incorporating universal design concepts and daylighting strategies.

“The students had great opportunities to develop their design skills by working with a ‘real’ client while, at the same time, providing their design services to the senior living community,” stated Zou.

Zou and the other CCELL Happy Award recipients were honored at a reception at Tin Roof Brewery earlier this spring.

CCELL promotes community engagement by serving as a clearinghouse for service-learning pedagogy and community partnerships; promotes scholarship by informing and helping to coordinate planning, research, pedagogy, and assessment associated with service-learning and civic engagement; and enhances student learning and leadership skills by facilitating service-learning and related student initiatives. Visit lsu.edu/ccell for more information.

Read more about the St. James Place design project at id.lsu.edu.