January 22, 2024 | Kimberly Phillips

‘I am a physical storyteller. I really like to tell stories nonverbally because it creates a universal language’

‘America’s Got Talent’ Alum, Soon-to-Be UConn Grad Marries Aerial Acrobatics, Animation

Abigail Baird ’24 MFA may have Radio City Music Hall on her resume, but an upcoming appearance at the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre might just be the performance of a lifetime.

It’s the place where the show she’s had in her head for a decade and performed in bits on “America’s Got Talent” and “The Incredible Talent of France” will come to fruition in its entirety – even if she says it’s still a work in progress.

Baird says she designed “Nothing Really Matters” as a portable production and, yes, her 20-foot-tall rig for aerial acrobatics travels with her. That’s right: Baird is an aerialist who’s mastered and taught the skill of mid-air acrobatics.

Over the last 24 years, the Texas native has gone from circus school in Vermont to puppet school in Connecticut and traveled the world in between.

“I am a physical storyteller. I really like to tell stories nonverbally because it creates a universal language that can be understood among different audiences,” Baird, who also once trained as a mime, says.

Whether through hand-to-hand acrobatics with a partner or with the help of an aerial fabric sling held up by a four-legged pyramid rig, Baird uses movement to convey experiences, thoughts, and moods.

In “Nothing Really Matters,” she adds a backdrop of animation and puppets to the mix to ride a horse, get chased by a bear, fall off a cliff, and get shot out of a cannon, all while staying suspended mid-air in a sling.

That’s what’s fun about the show, she says, staying in the same place in the center of the stage yet traveling so far.

“I call it a one-woman show, but not a one-woman production,” Baird says. “I have a whole team of graduate and undergraduate students working on the show with me – animators, puppet arts students, lighting design students. This show really wouldn’t have been possible without their creativity and insights. I wouldn’t have been able to do this completely on my own.”

With support from Alison Paul, an associate professor of illustration/animation in the art and art history department, and Anna Lindemann, an assistant professor of motion design and animation in digital media & design, Baird’s show marries the varied departments in the School of Fine Arts.

“Animation has the power to transform time and space,” she says. “You can be miniature or giant. You can go into outer space. You can be one thing that suddenly becomes something else. But puppets breathe and they have life, and that life essence that relates to human movement is what makes them incredible storytellers.”

The convergence of animation and puppetry has been the focus of her UConn studies the last three years under Bart Roccoberton Jr., professor and director of the dramatic arts department’s puppet arts program, and John Bell, associate professor and director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.

‘I can still remember hearing the applause’

But before that, in 2008, Baird started the company Aerial Animation pairing her physical skills with animations from a cartoonist friend who together came into their own as artists, she says, starting with simple line drawings and basic aerial acrobatics skills and progressing to what audiences saw in 2014 on “America’s Got Talent” and in 2017 on “The Incredible Talent of France.”

She made it to the semifinals – the next-to-last round – in both programs. With each performance, she and a growing group of animators created a piece of the full “Nothing Really Matters,” building on what had been previously done and, in the end, giving her large sections of the full show.

“I can still remember hearing the applause and rush of what it sounds like to hear 6,000 people clapping all at the same time,” Baird says. “I am so grateful for those experiences. They propelled my career and solidified my artistic voice. That was the first real maturity of my work. I toured the world afterward with those organizations and performed in Dubai, London, and Las Vegas.”

But she wanted to refocus on her art instead of entertainment.

“I’ve always wanted to be able to create my own stories and my own drawings,” she explains. “But animation is very expensive, and in order to be able to tell all the stories I want to tell, I knew I needed to have some of those skillsets of my own. So, by coming back to school, studying puppetry, and dipping my toe in the DMD and art departments here at UConn, I was able to access the resources I needed.”

Her equipment has overtaken the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre – in the back of the main Jorgensen stage – since mid-August, while she’s worked on the animations and shadow box and toy theater puppets for the show, which will be performed Jan. 26 and 27.

Ironically, the physically demanding “Nothing Really Matters,” funded with a Puppeteers of America Margo and Rufus Rose Endowment Grant, centers on sleep and rest, the body’s reliance for it, and one woman’s self-shaming need for it, Baird says.

“In our society, most of us have an internal struggle with our need for rest. People will say, ‘what are you up to,’ ‘what are you doing next,’ ‘what’s happening for you,’ and no one ever admits, ‘Oh, I just watched Netflix all day and it was great. I feel so much better today.’

“It’s an internal conflict we all have,” she continues. “Admitting that rest is part of our hero journey is hard for us even though it’s part of our ability to thrive. Success comes with moments of pause and reflection, and in that stillness new information comes that wouldn’t otherwise.”

She says it’s a topic adults can relate to and a show that’s exhilarating for children, making it ideal for any mix of audience members. After all, who wouldn’t want to see a bed do double-duty as a monster?

Perhaps some of the most beautiful and serene parts of the show are Baird walking through a stop-motion animation forest. It’s created using a technique that gives one-dimensional paper trees and leaves the illusion of depth.

Laser cut in a variety of colors, the trees change from season to season as she walks along. It’s an example, she says, of the synthesis of puppets and animation – the inanimate paper being manipulated to give it life as it scrolls across a screen.

She also has included in the show live-cued animation, just like sound effects or light changes layered into a narrative. Another area downstage near the audience shows off a smaller, second set of projections, these seemingly two-dimensional, or what she calls 2.5-dimensional.

“I would really like to see moving images and animation become part of university theater experiences alongside lights and sounds. It’s happening more and more on Broadway, and I think UConn is ready for it,” Baird says.

She is too.

“I always knew this is what I was going to do, but it’s been an evolution and I really believe that theater is a collaborative art form,” she says. “Allowing myself to be influenced by the opportunities that have been presented to me over the last two decades is what got me to where I am.”

“Nothing Really Matters” will be performed Friday, Jan. 26, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 27, at 2 p.m. at the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre. Tickets are free and can be obtained online. It’s one of eight shows in “RojoFest: The Jerry Rojo Festival of Original Student Work,” co-sponsored by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry and Connecticut Repertory Theatre. The festival runs Jan. 25-28 in multiple locations around campus. A list of shows and free tickets to performances are available online.

UConn Today Article: https://today.uconn.edu/2024/01/americas-got-talent-alum-soon-to-be-uconn-grad-marries-aerial-acrobatics-animation/

January 2, 2024 | Jaclyn Severance

Oscar Guerra’s new project explores mental health and the social, cultural, and political factors that affect it

UConn DMD Professor Documents Story of Latino Mental Health through Humanities Institute Fellowship

How can a documentary show us the inside of a person’s mind?

Crafting a visual representation of mental health is a challenge that visual artists frequently grapple with – painters can rely on textures and colors, sculptors can work with wood or metal or stone, dancers can use movement to invoke emotion.

“But how do you illustrate mental health in a documentary?” asks UConn’s Oscar Guerra, an associate professor of film and video in the Digital Media and Design Department at UConn Stamford and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker.

“It’s really hard, because a lot of things happen in a person’s childhood, and a lot of things are happening in a person’s head, so you have to get creative to do it.”

For his latest project – supported by a fellowship from the UConn Humanities Institute – Guerra has taken on that creative challenge, aiming to present an exploration of mental health and the social, cultural, and political factors that can impact it – particularly for those who have been historically disproportionately affected, like members of the undocumented and working-class Latino communities who are frequently the subjects of Guerra’s films.

“In the same way that we all have physical health, we all have mental health. We also have different protections and vulnerabilities, or ‘risk factors,’ that will make us more or less likely to get some diseases and experience them more severely than others,” says Guerra. “COVID is a great example that we are all familiar with – for people of specific age groups, with certain health preconditions, or with socioeconomic disadvantages, COVID was more lethal than for the rest of the population.

“Mental health works similarly, not in terms of contagion – it’s not a virus that spreads – but in the sense of levels of risk. We all experience stress, anxiety, and sadness. That is part of the human experience. Still, some factors will make us more or less likely to develop mental health conditions such as depression, for example. These go from the individual level to the family, community, and broader social contexts. Some examples are childhood trauma, oppression, or systemic racism. Undocumented migrants are some of the most vulnerable sectors of the population, who are subjected to multiple levels of disadvantage, exploitation, and social rejection, making mental health a priority when we think about these communities.”

UConn Humanities Fellowships are opportunities for individuals to pursue advanced work in the humanities. For faculty like Guerra, fellowships offer a year-long opportunity to research, write, collaborate, and pursue work that extends and celebrates humanities scholarship.

Applications are accepted from all disciplines. Fellowship recipients are released from their teaching, departmental, and administrative duties, but are expected to produce scholarly articles, a monograph on a specialized subject, a book on a broad topic, an archaeological site report, a translation, an edition, or other scholarly tools.

For Guerra, the fellowship – which began in the fall semester and concludes this spring – offered the opportunity to build new connections as he dedicated his time to researching and producing a new documentary film.

“For this, I decided to reach out to certain people from prestigious universities,” he says. “When I was doing my literature review, I started getting a lot of big names from Johns Hopkins University, from the School of Epidemiology. I was lucky enough to get in touch with the doctors Carlos Castillo and Linda Bucay Harari, because I’ve read a lot of their articles.”

He also began working with Sarah Rendón García, a post-doctoral student at Harvard University and assistant professor in UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Human Development and Family Sciences department whose research involves the intersection of immigration studies, developmental psychology, and social justice.

“Sarah was the one who put me in touch with our main participant of the film,” says Guerra. “Her name is Ruth, and Ruth has an extraordinary story.”

Originally raised in Honduras and now mother of four who lives in Connecticut, Ruth came to the United States to live with her mother when she was 15 years old and pregnant with her first child. She’d been primarily raised by her grandparents while her mother worked in the U.S. to provide financial support to the family, and Ruth struggled not only with relocating to a new and different place but also with connecting with her mother.

“It’s a story about a very difficult relationship with mom and daughter, because usually we think that they have a reunion and everything is happily ever after,” says Guerra. “That’s not the reality for many families. They’re with a complete stranger.”

Ruth came to the project with a surprising openness and willingness to share her very personal story, a critical component for the success of the project, says Guerra, who worked hand-and-hand with his subject in a way that has become a signature of his documentary style.

“I think that her story is typical, but it’s very atypical, and hopefully in that, people can find inspiration,” Guerra says. “As a character, she’s just so lovable. The few people that have seen the cut were like, man, you start rooting for her right away. She doesn’t present herself as a victim, or as a hero. She’s like, I’m an average person with a lot of flaws, and I’m trying to make this work.”

Ruth also shared a trove of personal and family recordings – offering Guerra an opportunity to create a visual story of a life, and it’s struggles, in a way that he didn’t originally anticipate.

“She has footage from 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago – she has been documenting basically every year something, even starting with her mom, they were always buying camcorders,” he says. “In the documentary, you’re going to see footage from VHS-C, Super Hi8, MiniDV, early smartphones. You see her from when she’s really young. We start with pictures, but then you start seeing the changing technology, so I think that on its own is going to be interesting, and that’s what we needed to really illustrate certain parts of it.”

The mixed-media aspect of the project is something new for Guerra, who has made a name for himself with the personally crafted and close-up glimpses he offers into people’s lives through his films.

But what is similar, he says, is how inspired his work is by the stories of strong women and how relatable the stories he presents are, even while being extraordinary.

“I try to make sure that you as an audience are able to connect with the participant or the main character or one of the main characters, one way or another, because the reality is that we’re not that different,” he says. “We have very similar needs at the end of the day. As humans, as individuals, we have very similar needs – the need for affection, for understanding, of trying to do better for yourself and your family members.

“I try to go with the story and understand that we have complex realities, and I think that regardless if you’re Latino, if you’re undocumented or not, I think that you can still appreciate the value of the triumph of your own will and saying, ‘I have to do this and I have to get better at it, against all odds.’”

Guerra says he completed most of his production on the film during the first half of his fellowship. He hopes to have the film completed by the end of the spring.

For more information about faculty, graduate, undergraduate, and visiting fellowships through UConn’s Humanities Institute, visit humanities.uconn.edu.

UConn Today Article: https://today.uconn.edu/2024/01/uconn-dmd-professor-documents-story-of-latino-mental-health-through-humanities-institute-fellowship/

Limitless: 2023 UConn Digital Media & Design B.F.A. Senior Exhibition 

The UConn Digital Media & Design (DMD) Department is excited to announce the 2023 DMD BFA Senior Exhibition, Limitless. The in-person exhibition is open from April 1 to April 28, 2023 in the Jorgensen Gallery at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, with an opening reception on Friday, March 31 from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. EDT (with a screening of films and animations starting at 6 p.m.). Regular gallery hours are Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and prior to performances and during most intermissions. All events are free and open to the public.

Limitless features the work of thirty senior UConn DMD Bachelor of Fine Arts students from both Storrs and Stamford campuses. Exhibited artworks range from 2D and 3D animations to narrative and documentary films, mobile apps, websites, and games. The title Limitless reflects the expansive hopes of the exhibiting artists. For these students, the future has no limits. To learn more about the exhibition, visit: http://dmd.uconn.edu/bfashow. 

Exhibiting artists:

Giana Adragna (Newtown, Pa.), Jade Wedding Journal, mobile app
Agustina Aranda (Bridgeport, Conn.), Say Something, documentary short film
Nicole Bottone (Ridgefield, Conn.), Nightfall (日夜渴望), 2D animation
Willow Chau (Chester, N.H.), La Cuisine de Chau, website
Trinity Caban (New Haven, Conn.), Rooted Obsession, narrative short film
Matt Ciccone (Wallingford, Conn.), Alta’s Odyssey, video game
Dan Collette (Middlebury, Conn.), Tutti, web app
Dean Corelli (Bedford, N.Y.), Legend of Silva, video game
Josh Estevez (Bronx, N.Y.), The 9 Chambers: Tower of Doom, video game
Andy Gardner (Bridgeport, Conn.), iDriver, mobile app
Wren Halpern (East Northport, N.Y.), Camp Hemlock, 2D animation
Sergei LeFaivre (Brookline, Mass.), Story of Success: UConn Basketball, 3D animation
Walter Luciano (Stratford, Conn.), Don’t Break Your Controller, video game
Caitlin McCarthy (Easton, Conn.), Escape from the Grey, 2D animation
Parker McKenzie (Newtown. Conn.), Bird vs Evil, 2D animation
Shannon Nasution (Norwalk, Conn.), I’m Sorry for Your Loss, narrative short film
Christopher Orrico (Cos Cob, Conn.), The Ladder, documentary short film
Sarah Oxner (Shelton, Conn.), House Pets, narrative short film
Tiana Rawlings (Manchester, Conn.), Deadly Serious, narrative short film
Stephen Rivas (New Canaan, Conn.), March, 3D animation
Sandra Robel (Southington, Conn.), Reign, 3D animation
Shane Rungkagoonnuwat (Chiang Mai, Thailand), Creatures of One’s Mind, 3D animation
Madison Salvatore (Alburtis, Pa.), The Bacchus is Dead!, video game
Jack Seraphin (Fairfield, Conn.), Manila, narrative short film
Grace Smedberg (Newington, Conn.), Trespasser, 3D animation
Madalynn Stewart (Norwalk, Conn.), Augustus, 3D animation
Brenna Thorpe (Branford, Conn.), Husky Wait Time, mobile app
Yazmine Uvidia (Queens, N.Y.), I Choose You, installation
Nandita Venkat (Glastonbury, Conn.), Tender Memory, video game
Cynthia Wan (New Fairfield, Conn.), Violet, website

The University of Connecticut’s Department of Digital Media & Design creates future leaders in entertainment, design, business, and communications. Students study animation, film/video production, game design, web/interactive media design, digital media business strategies, and digital culture. Our commitment to experiential learning prepares our students to respond to real-world challenges, and we encourage students to find and express their voice, building from their unique background and perspective. We acknowledge that a diversity of thought and expression is needed in today’s society and see great promise in our DMD students’ abilities to make a difference in the world as future digital media content creators, distributors, and analyzers.

The University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts balances artistic and cultural legacies with the innovative approaches and techniques of contemporary art. In doing so, the School of Fine Arts serves students at UConn in both their educational and their professional development. The outstanding faculty from the four academic departments (Art & Art History, Digital Media & Design, Dramatic Arts, and Music) are committed to providing rigorous professional education and all offer undergraduate and graduate degrees. The academic programs are supported by specialized and uniquely focused showcases, stages, exhibition spaces and forums which include the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, The William Benton Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Galleries, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, and von der Mehden Recital Hall.

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If you would like more information about the 2023 UConn DMD BFA Senior Exhibition, email Marcella
Vertefeuille at digitalmedia@uconn.edu.

Download a .pdf of this press release.

Resilience: 2022 UConn Digital Media & Design B.F.A. Senior Exhibition 

STORRS, CT – The UConn Digital Media & Design Department is excited to announce the 2022 DMD BFA Senior Exhibition, Resilience. After two years of virtual exhibitions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are thrilled to hold an in-person exhibition which is open from April 2 to April 29, 2022 in the Jorgensen Gallery at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, with an opening reception on Friday, April 1 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. EDT. Regular gallery hours are Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and prior to performances and during most intermissions. All events are free and open to the public.  

Resilience features the work of 25 senior UConn DMD Bachelor of Fine Arts students from both the Storrs and Stamford campuses. Exhibited artworks range from 2D and 3D animations to narrative and documentary films, digital publications, interactive websites, and games. The title Resilience reflects the challenges and experiences of the exhibiting artists’ senior year during the transition from distance learning to in person. For many of them, this tumultuous year not only strengthened the extent of their creative process, but also brought forth new and meaningful ideas through their work. To learn more about the exhibition, visit: http://dmd.uconn.edu/bfashow. 

Exhibiting artists:

Ben Anderson (Stonington, Conn.), Evergreen, 3D animation 

Brenna Ashby (Hopedale, Mass.), Evolution, 3D animation 

Natalie Curtis (Lebanon, Conn.), The Stolen Child: Animating Poetry, 2D animation 

Megan Du Plessis (South Windsor, Conn.), Invisible Ties Oceans Apart, short documentary film

Quinn Erno (East Lyme, Conn.), Rise: Mountain Bike Documentary, short film 

Arianna Gomes (Bridgeport, Conn.), Graphicsbyari Brand Suite, website 

Colleen Green (Stamford, Conn.), ReadR, website 

Paula Guerrero (Stamford, Conn.), Gatcha!, 2D animation

Eric Laputka (Bridgewater, N.J.), Pizza Time, 3D video game 

Jon Larsen (Stratford, Conn.), Paint Knight, 2D video game 

Samir Lee (New Haven, Conn.), Esc, VR experience 

Matthew Luxeder (Prospect, Conn.), American Boy, short documentary film

Nicole Mata (Tolland, Conn.), How to Conserve Bread, 2D animation 

EJ McCabe (Bridgewater, Mass.), Cats vs Robots, 2D animation/short film 

Sofia Messerrly (Port Chester, N.Y.), Enter: Net, 2D animation/music video

Jaret Ostop (Madison, Conn.), Illusions and Witchcraft, 2D animation 

Davis Peng (Old Greenwich, Conn.), Witch of the Forest, 2D animation 

Lauren Platt (Skillman, N.J.), Starry-eyed, 3D animation 

Kevin Rodican (Yonkers, N.Y.), Scholarship, short film/music video

Heather Rutishauser (Monroe, N.Y.), Floating to Freedom, short documentary film

Emmanuel Sainville (Stratford, Conn.), L’Union Fait La Focus, 2D & 3D animation

Meira Tompkins (Dunstable, Mass.), Internship, website

Cara Tracey (Darien, Conn.), PeakBag, mobile app

Miles Waterbury (Clinton, Conn.), Nutz, 3D animation

Chaofan Yu (Jinan, China), Vista, mobile app

The University of Connecticut’s Department of Digital Media & Design creates future leaders in entertainment, design, business, and communications. Students can study animation, film/video production, game design, web/interactive media design, digital media business strategies, and digital humanities. Our commitment to experiential learning prepares our students to respond to real-world challenges, and we encourage students to find and express their voice, building from their unique background and perspective. We acknowledge that a diversity of thought and expression is needed in today’s society and see great promise in our DMD students’ abilities to make a difference in the world as future digital media content creators, distributors, and analyzers.

The University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts balances artistic and cultural legacies with the innovative approaches and techniques of contemporary art. In doing so, the School of Fine Arts serves students at UConn in both their educational and their professional development. The outstanding faculty from the four academic departments (Art & Art History, Digital Media & Design, Dramatic Arts, and Music) are committed to providing rigorous professional education and all offer undergraduate and graduate degrees. The academic programs are supported by specialized and uniquely focused showcases, stages, exhibition spaces and forums which include the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, The William Benton Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Galleries, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, and von der Mehden Recital Hall.

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If you would like more information about the 2022 BFA Exhibition, email Stacy Webb at digitalmedia@uconn.edu.

Download a .pdf of this press release.

Graduating BFA seniors from the University of Connecticut Department of Digital Media & Design are excited to showcase their senior project work in the virtual exhibition Unraveled. The online exhibition launches Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at http://dmd.uconn.edu/bfashow. In addition, an online screening featuring film and animation premieres will take place via YouTube on Friday May 7, 2021 at 7pm EDT at http://youtube.com/uconndmd. Unraveled is presented by UConn Digital Media & Design (DMD) and the Virtual Jorgensen Gallery at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. All events are free and open to the public.

Unraveled features the work of 22 senior UConn DMD Bachelor of Fine Arts students from both Storrs and Stamford campuses. Exhibited artworks range from 2D and 3D animations to narrative and documentary films, digital publications, interactive websites, and games. The title Unraveled reflects the feelings and reimagined workflows of the exhibiting artists’ senior year. Everything they may have planned – or thought would be – became “unraveled.” For many of them, this tumultuous year not only influenced the trajectory of their projects, but also the subject of their work. 

The exhibition includes work by the following students:

Simone Alston (Greenwich, Conn.), Glittergirl Online, 2D animation

Andrea Blanco (Stamford, Conn.), Amor, Sabor, Esfuerzo, short documentary film

Destin Brown (New Haven, Conn.), An Artist’s Struggle, 3D animation

Meaghan Doherty (Enfield, Conn.), Viscid Xenogenics, 2D video game

Isaiah Edwards (New Haven, Conn.), BLACK SATURATION, short film

Nicole Ellis (Vernon, Conn.), I Try to MAGIC a Plant!!!, 2D animation

Mackenzie Fox (Stony Point, N.Y.), Through a Glass, 2D video game

Sophia Galante (New Haven, Conn.), Sleight of Hand, 2D animation

Alisia Gruendel (Branford, Conn.), Balter, 2D animatic

Katelyn Jepsen (Norwell, Mass.), Flecks, 3D modeling/2D animation

Cassidy Keller (Sandy Hook, Conn.), Where I Call Home, 2D animation and video

Jake Limone (Norwalk, Conn.), Abductee, narrative short film

Lynette Muse (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Oh,Chickens!, 3D animation

Akari Ohashi (Lexington, Mass.), out/o, 2D animation

Gillian Partyka (Summerville, S.C.), The Eastern Tower, 2D animation

Jakub Pirog (Stratford, Conn.), JR SPECS: The Come Up, short documentary film

Carlos Rivera (New London, Conn.), Mount Tolkien: “Out of Time,” 2D animation 

Michael Russell (Madison, Conn.), My 2020 Process Book, multimedia book

Dana Santillana (Waterford, Conn.), Spiraling, 3D animation

Josh Stanavage (Colchester, Conn.), Take a Walk, mobile website

Marcella Vertefeuille (Ashford, Conn.), Personality, 2D animation

Anthony Zor (Bethel, Conn.), Lost Souls, narrative short film

The University of Connecticut’s Department of Digital Media & Design creates future leaders in entertainment, design, business, and communications. Students can study animation, film/video production, game design, web/interactive media design, digital media business strategies, and digital humanities. Our commitment to experiential learning prepares our students to respond to real-world challenges, and we encourage students to find and express their voice, building from their unique background and perspective. We acknowledge that a diversity of thought and expression is needed in today’s society and see great promise in our DMD students’ abilities to make a difference in the world as future digital media content creators, distributors, and analyzers.

The University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts balances artistic and cultural legacies with the innovative approaches and techniques of contemporary art. In doing so, the School of Fine Arts serves students at UConn in both their educational and their professional development. The outstanding faculty from the four academic departments (Art & Art History, Digital Media & Design, Dramatic Arts, and Music) are committed to providing rigorous professional education and all offer undergraduate and graduate degrees. The academic programs are supported by specialized and uniquely focused showcases, stages, exhibition spaces and forums which include the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, The William Benton Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Galleries, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, and von der Mehden Recital Hall.

###

If you would like more information about the 2021 BFA Exhibition, email Stacy Webb at digitalmedia@uconn.edu.

Download a .pdf of this press release.

The 2021 Digital Media & Design Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition showcases innovative work in digital media. 

The University of Connecticut’s Department of Digital Media & Design is delighted to announce the 2021 MFA Thesis Exhibition Turning Point, viewable online and in-person starting March 31, 2021. The in-person exhibition runs through April 9 at the William Benton Museum of Art at 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, CT. Museum hours are Wednesday through Friday from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM and 1:00 to 4:00 PM on Saturdays. The online exhibition opens to the public March 31 at https://dmd.uconn.edu/2021mfashow/. A live virtual event featuring screenings and discussion with the exhibiting artists will be held Friday April 9th at 5pm EDT. All events are free and open to the public. 

Turning Point invites viewers to experience a varied range of digital media by graduating Digital Media & Design Master of Fine Arts students. The exhibition features 2D and 3D animations, UI/UX interactions and designs, digital games and virtual reality. Turning Point represents two years of research, creativity, development, experimentation and production.

Exhibiting artists: Emma Atkinson (Baldwinsville, NY, USA), when we were, Virtual Reality Video Game; Yucheng Hang (Yangzhou, China), CyberTown, Interactive Educational Platform; Hongju “Hannah” Lim (Hwajeong, South Korea), Ensemble, 3D Animation Short Film; Wenchao Lou (Shandong, Qingdao, China), Memory · Home · Food, 2D Cooking Game; Claudia Nunez (Lima, Peru), As You Wish, 2D Animation and Pitch Bible; Renoj Varghese (Orange, CT, USA), Microinteractions in Chatbots, Interaction Design. 

The Master of Fine Arts in Digital Media & Design within the School of Fine Arts at University of Connecticut (UConn) is a customized, two-year graduate program where students work closely with dedicated faculty in the development of their own independent creative practice. Situated within a top-25 public research university, UConn’s Digital Media & Design Department operates at the intersection of fine art, technology, science, and the humanities. The program is designed for applicants with a demonstrated background in digital media/design who want the opportunity to intensely pursue advanced education and research in their specific area of expertise or in an interdisciplinary capacity drawing from more than one area within the digital media space. Situated in the School of Fine Arts, DMD faculty and students have the opportunity to engage in collaborative projects with both industry partners and top researchers across the university. 

UConn’s School of Fine Arts balances artistic and cultural legacies with the innovative approaches and techniques of contemporary art. In doing so, the School of Fine Arts serves students at UConn in both their educational and their professional development. The outstanding faculty from the four academic departments (Art & Art History, Digital Media & Design, Dramatic Arts, and Music) are committed to providing rigorous professional education and all offer undergraduate and graduate degrees. The academic programs are supported by specialized and uniquely focused showcases, stages, exhibition spaces and forums which include the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, The William Benton Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Galleries, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, and von der Mehden Recital Hall.

A focus on topics ranging from lack of Black representation on writing staffs to the distorted perspectives of TV crime dramas.

 

 

UConn’s Digital Media & Design Department will host the inaugural event in its Diverse Perspectives in Digital Media & Design: 2021 Speaker Serieswith “Amplifying Black Voices in Hollywood” on Friday, Feb. 19 from 1 to 8 p.m., via Jorgensen Digital Stage.

The one-day summit will feature conversations with Black leaders from various sectors of the film industry, and will examine its changing landscape by exploring efforts to increase diversity in all aspects of Hollywood including screenwriting, development and production, producing and directing, and visual effects and post-production.

Participants will include:

• Romany Malco, actor/director of “Tijuana Jackson: Purpose Over Prison” on “Fighting for Equity in Hollywood.”
• Kristen Marston, culture and entertainment advocacy director at Color of Change Hollywood, on “How the TV Crime Genre Normalizes Injustice.”
• Alan Mayo, president of Orion Pictures, on “Authentic Storytelling at the Studio Level.”
• Numa Perrier, director of “Jezebel,” on “Creating Content for underrepresented Voices in Digital Media.”
• Chris White, visual effects supervisor at WETA Digital, on “The Value of Inclusion in Visual Effects.”

Last year, Color of Change Hollywood released its second major study on how the paucity of people of color writing scripts and in leadership roles in the film and television industries contributes to miseducation about the criminal justice system and makes racial injustice acceptable. The report, “Normalizing Injustice,” examined 26 different scripted series focused on crime from the 2017-2018 season broadcast on both networks and streaming platforms.

The 2020 report found more than 80% of the producers, known as showrunners, as well as at least 81% of writers were white, while only 9% were Black. In three of the series, all of the writers were white. The data was similar to the organization’s 2017 study of television and film writers, “Race in the Writer’s Room,” which examined all episodes from all 234 original scripted comedy and drama series on 18 broadcast, cable, and digital platforms from the 2016-2017 season. That study found two-thirds of shows had no Black writers and more than 90% of all shows had white showrunners.

“We are working in an industry that has not been built for Black people and people of color and so essentially it’s functioning as it was intended to function,” says Marston. “There’s a lot of people who are working in the industry who are continuing to do things the way that they’ve always done things because that’s what’s worked for them. Hopefully we’ll see a bit of change in this coming year, given everything that’s happened in the past year.”

Marston says events similar to the UConn summit can contribute to creating change because, even if people are not in the entertainment field, consumers hold “a significant amount of power,” and can use their knowledge about industry issues to hold industry leaders accountable to improve their practices.

“Normalizing Injustice” examined for the first time how crime shows can problematically affect viewers because more crime shows — more than 60% of prime time programs — were on the list of the Top 100 most watched shows than shows from any other genre, and had a higher total viewership than any other type of program. Among the concerns identified in the study, crime shows often:

• Make heroes of people who violate our rights
• Present the powerless as those who actually manipulate the system most
• Present momentary flash of remorse about killing or wrongly jailing as all the accountability that’s need
• Turn racism into a joke, a prompt for eye-rolling
• Frame objections to illegal and immoral behavior as laughable ignorance of the naïve who don’t know “how things really work on the streets.”

“We know that Americans’ perceptions of crime are very much at odds with the reality of crime in America,” the report says. “As just one example, while the crime rate has dropped precipitously over the last 20 years, the number of people who say that there is ‘more crime in the U.S. than a year ago’ has steadily risen.”

Marston says an example of the report resulting in change can already be seen in programs like “The Rookie,” whose creative team worked with Color of Change Hollywood to adjust its season.

“There have been a lot of creators who have really understood what we were trying to do,” she says. “We’re not trying to tell them how to do their work or tell them what stories to write. We’re just there to be a solution oriented partner along the way.”

Upcoming programs in the Diverse Perspectives in Digital Media & Design: 2021 Speaker Series will include “Bl(x)ck Rhizomes: A Digital Public History Praxis,” on Feb. 22; “Women in Animation” on Feb. 26, and “Representations of Religion in Film” on March 5 with other programs being scheduled.

“Amplifying Black Voices in Hollywood” is presented by UConn’s Department of Digital Media & Design, in partnership with Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts and the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center

This summit is free and open to the public, but RSVP is required. To register and for more event details, visit the DMD Diverse Perspectives site.

Article From UConn Today