The Daily Hub

Interim Executive Director of Bronx River Alliance Elena Conte, MS City and Regional Planning ’14, was interviewed by Gothamist about the cleanup efforts following Con Edison’s recent oil spill in the Bronx River. “‘The information to the public was not as quick or as clear as we would have liked,’ Conte said, adding the public wasn’t notified about the spill until her organization shared the news days afterwards.”

Parker Ewen, BFA Fine Arts ’24, was selected for the Byrdcliffe Artist Residency in Upstate New York this summer. Ewen’s large-scale oil paintings deal with “themes of isolation and abandonment in relationships, often focusing on self-portraits and dogs as symbols of interpersonal and domestic dynamics.”

Jo Livingstone, visiting assistant professor of graduate communications design, speaks with Merve Emre on The Critic and Her Publics, a limited series from the New York Review of Books and Literary Hub, about Old English, anachronism, and writing criticism. “It’s very monastic,” she says. “It’s all about being alone but still reaching out to find the other people through the cave.”

Mickalene Thomas, BFA Fine Arts ’00, was honored at The New Museum’s 2024 Spring Gala, and will receive the Vanguard Award at the upcoming Los Angeles LGBT Center Gala. “My art has always been about more than pretty pictures,” she said. “Seeing the deep dark complexities of Blackness, of the Black body and its loveliness, is what pushes me forward to making what I make. It’s about creating a language that resonates and that challenges societal norms.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and Pratt>Forward Coordinator Yasmeen Abdallah, MFA Fine Arts ’15, was interviewed in Shoutout LA. “I am interested in ephemera, aftermaths, and the stories told and secrets kept by imprints and objects that speak to our contemporary culture,” she said.

Matías Piñeiro, associate professor of film/video, received a Special Mention in the International Award category at the 46th Cinéma du réel International Documentary Film Festival for his film You Burn Me.

Pratt Institute is listed among the 30 best film schools in America by Backstage. “Instead of having students choose one specialty, Pratt focuses on educating them as ‘total filmmakers’ by teaching every step of the process and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration.”

Seymour Nussenbaum, BA Illustration ’48, was one of three surviving veterans from the U.S. military’s “Ghost Army” to be awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for their heroic contributions during WWII. The Ghost Army used “inflatable tanks, phony uniforms, fake rumors and special effects to deceive German forces.” Several of the students in Pratt’s Industrial Camouflage Program—which researched and developed camouflage techniques to support the defense effort—would go on to join the Ghost Army.

Salman Toor, MFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’09, listed among Artsy’s “10 Contemporary Painters Reviving Impressionism.” Toor’s paintings “frame their scenes similarly to the Impressionist café paintings, where the scenes seem to spill beyond what’s immediately visible in the frame.”