Cornell Council for the Arts

2022-2023 CCA Grants

The Family CopoliAndy Colpitts
The Family Copoli is a raucous, dark, silly, all-singing, all-dancing new musical exploring the human race’s desire to carry on and the lengths we will go to for survival.
Heading into Night: a Clown Ode on...(forgetting)Beth Milles
Heading into Night is a performance piece focusing on the realities and heartache and pull the emptiness and the reverie of dementia. It represents a synthesis of research and performance on the isolation many have experienced during the pandemic was developed as an investigation into kinder/gentler care dementia villages based on Hogewey Willage in the Netherlands. Heading into Night is an immersive performance to stimulate the senses and ignite memory to create a sense of community in each audience interaction to assuage a loneliness heightened by (pandemic escalated) cognitive challenge.
Maro Pebo: Transcending Self and OtherHosted by Rodrigo Guzman Serrano
Mexican artist Maro Pebo presents her work to Cornell and the larger Ithaca community. Through lichens, Winogradsky columns, and mitochondria, Pebo presents a series of sculptural and audiovisual works challenging human timeframes and scales, and confronting historical scientific narratives. Pebo highlights the interconnectedness and symbiotic relationships between bacteria, plants, and humans.
Otherworldly ResonancesHosted by Xak Bjerken
In 2022, the great American experimental composer, George Crumb, died. Many of his greatest works for piano were written for Gilbert Kalish, and over three concerts, we will celebrate this relationship in works for 1,2, and 2 quarter-tone tuned pianos. Also on the program will be works by Charles Ives, whose complete piano music Kalish has recorded in what is considered definitive accounts. The program will also feature the 2-piano works by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Pianists Christina Dahl and Oksana Ezhokina have studied and subsequently performed with Kalish for almost 30 years, and have recorded the complete 2-piano works of Rachmaninoff.
Wilford the Drug ElephantNoah Alpers
The short film Wilford the Drug Elephant involves an actor portraying an anti-drug mascot who returns to his hometown and faces personal demons. The short details Wilford preparing a performance that takes him and his assistant Mike to his Kansas hometown. Here, the two encounter Pete, an addict and friend of Wilford’s, who, unbeknownst to Mike and Pete, inspired Wilford’s anti-drug act. In the ensuing interaction, Wilford grapples with uncomfortable realities about exploiting his friends' suffering.
(Dis)Appearing Act: Visualizing Enslavement and Resistance in Acts of FlightGraduate scholars presenting at the symposium include Mariah Thompson, of the Africana Studies Department, and Chanté Morris, of the Literatures in English Department. For the exhibition, two portraits depicting the enslaved people described in the runaway advertisements at the Kroch Rare and Manuscript Collections are produced by Cornell artist Havily Nwakuche.
Greg Stuart: Artist ResidencyCCCP + María Bulla
Greg Stuart is a widely recognized percussionist and improviser, who has been working closely with composers of experimental music for many years. Although he has a particular style within the world of percussion music, his main interest is in the experimentation process that comes with every piece. The final concert will be a showcase of the diverse styles, interests, and backgrounds of the Cornell composition students, in the hands of a truly creative and experienced artist.
CampfireAustin Bunn
A short documentary about a single season in the life of a gay campground in the Endless Mountains region of Pennsylvania, the characters who live there as "perm" residents, and the straight family that owns the property.
NOMON: Artist ResidencyCCCP + Michele Cheng
Cornell Contemporary Chamber Players, a graduate student-curated residency series, will feature percussion duo NOMON as one of the guest artists. This multimedia concert will include 7-9 original works by Cornell doctoral composers. NOMON is a percussion duo composed of sisters Shayna and Nava Dunkelman, who often work with electronic music, visuals, and videos. “Born and raised in Tokyo to an Indonesian mother and an American father, the sisters became multi-instrumentalists performing alongside their mother, a musician and composer active in Asia and the Middle East.”
Phantom LimbMelissa Conroy
The exhibit will be held in the Jill Stuart Gallery for the benefit of the Cornell Community over all, and specifically for the benefit of the students of the Department of Human Centered Design. This exhibit will consist of a series of interactive sculptural textiles and smart garments. Gallery attendees will have the option to activate each piece which will offer an aural response unique to each textile. We envision a dialogue and narrative that will unfold as attendees interact with pieces within the exhibit.
Closed Loop: Robotically Printed Recycled PlasticsDavid Costanza
Production of a 15ft diameter collective bench. The bench’s geometry organizes the seating areas into three smaller sections that are socially distanced from one another while belonging to the same closed loop. The bench is made of 6 self-similar components that will be printed independently and assembled on site. The triangular cross-section produces a flat surface for the seating component and then rotates to an inverted triangle to elevate from the ground and divide the seating areas. The research seeks to expand on the developments in 3D printing and to increase the scale of that work by utilizing industrial robotics.
Resiliency VoicesAnna Dietzsch
This indoor interactive video installation juxtaposed data from the "land-grab" program and interviews with current community members from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy about their resiliency projects in Northwest New York. This project was in partnership with series of "manifesto-signs" hung on the Arts Quad. Photography by Melanie Chu.
Soni Kum's Morning Dew (Asatsuyu)Hosted by Cornell East Asia Program
The East Asia Program is thrilled to say that it has been chosen by the Tokyo-based multi-media artist Soni Kum as the site of her first North American in-person exhibition. The exhibit and workshop will feature Soni Kum's 3-channel video piece Morning Dew: the stigma of being "brainwashed".
MFA NYC Show 2023Cornell University Department of Art
Each spring, Master of Fine Arts candidates at Cornell University work individually and collectively toward an exhibition in New York City. This is an important point to which candidates orient themselves throughout the year, functioning as a culmination of the artist's research and individual studio practices. It is a unique opportunity for Cornell MFA students to show their work together, meet alumni, and gain exposure in a major hub for contemporary art.
Sou / VenirGina Goico
A performance that places in dialogue objects/souvenirs as archive, representation, and erasure with the current practices of mass tourism in the Dominican Republic. The performance intends to point towards how the souvenir contains the histories that the archive denies. Sou / Venir starts the conversation through centering the Samana mantel inside the Guerlac Room at the A.D. White House, a souvenir from AD White's time in the Dominican Republic.
Digitality for Augmenting Garment-User InteractionsFatma Baytar
This installation by the Cornell Digital Fashion and Body research team, led by Dr. Fatma Baytar, seeks to develop conversations between the audience and the physical garments through the use of digital technologies as media.
Anti BiomeGiselle Hobbs
Anti Biome seeks to understand the effects of the degradation of the ozone layer at the cellular level through a bio-art exhibition created in collaboration with the Botanic Gardens, the Department of Plant Sciences, and the Lab of Ornithology.
Breaking the Guinness Record's Largest Sheet of Handmade PaperJulianne Hunter
Working with Cornellians and the larger Ithaca community to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest sheet of handmade paper. Holding a community-wide event and collaborative effort in this project will allow for a space to raise awareness of global issues. Papermaking is the most appropriate medium for spreading awareness relating to Earth Day because it will allow us to use recycled matter and create a piece of art with totally biodegradable materials.
KeepsakeMatéa LeBeau
An immersive show that asks its audience to consider permanence and impermanence through the mechanism of the tattoo.  In a time of such great instability, erasure, and uncertainty, the creation of a tattoo can bring about tender, vulnerable, and decisive moments of exchange between people.  The pieces in this show are an exploration of embracing the present, both alone and with others, through the slow devotional process of the hand-poked tattoo.
MEAT: A Meditation on Climate Change, Bulimia, and PornographyVivian Ludford
This interdisciplinary, hand-bound chapbook will combine original prints and prose to explore intersections of climate change, pornography, and bulimia. An accompanying exhibit and reading will showcase more voices and perspectives on these critical issues.
RAW Pavilion 2023Medium Design Collective
A structural installation by Medium Design Collective that presents design to the Cornell community to ignite discussion about global issues that can be understood and addressed through design, issues such as diversity+inclusion, digital coexistence, and designing for public safety.
Handmade ClothesKat Roberts
This large-scale print installation, which coincides with the ten-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse, is intended to draw attention to the labor and the workers behind our garments we wear.
ASTIGMA | Psychotic Interpretations of a World in GumBradley Verhelle
This project involves the research and subsequent exhibition of alternative process photography (gum bichromate) prints.
New Pieces for Steel PanCoral Douglas
Louis Raymond-Kolker (he/him) premieres Coral Douglas' (they/them) machine learning, alongside pieces from himself and Sam Stanley. As an instructor at Winston-Salem State University as well as High Point University, Louis instructs a large population of students excited by the possibility of transcending the Western percussion canon.
Arja Saraswati Puja: A Contemporary Balinese Performance PieceSoutheast Asia Program
Arja Saraswati Puja is an intercultural collaboration between guest artists from Bali, Indonesia, and the United States, that makes the rarely-presented traditional operatic dance-drama form accessible to a non-Balinese audience. This series of events is hosted by the Southeast Asia Program.
Generations: An evening exploring the Iranian diasporaDaniel Reza Sabzghabaei
An evening of works curated by Daniel and Bergamot exploring generations of Iranian and diasporic Iranian creators of differing backgrounds, practices, genders, and aesthetic bents. Connecting all of our works is the thread of influence each of us has to those who’ve come before us.
Latin American Concert SeriesLACS Program
LACS is an outreach initiative between Cornell University and regional community colleges seeking to democratize and strengthen the access to culture and education via exchanges between underrepresented members of our communities and international artists belonging to minority groups.
Oracle for Brutalist Architecture, Preparatory Drawings ExhibitionLeeza Meksin
A show of framed drawings, renderings, and small paintings that Leeza is making in preparation for a large-scale outdoor public art project in Ithaca, New York. This exhibition aims to raise awareness about the public art project, begin relevant dialogue about gender and architecture, and discover potential collaborators.
Performance where? Moving bodies and other spacesHanna Tulis
For a Spring 2023 elective course in which architecture students will explore movement on film, Hanna is collaborating with choreographer/filmmaker Sarah Friedland to create an Embodied Movement Workshop for the students and screening the artist’s and the students’ films at the Cornell Cinema.
Disappearing Birds of North America: Sapsucker Woods EditionJen Delos Reyes
A field guide to the endangered birds of North America made for Sapsucker Woods in Ithaca, New York, highlighting birds that can be seen there who are in danger of being lost to climate change. This will be printed as a free newspaper, and the launch will be a birding walk in the woods with the publication.
steady state / transient flow (a sound and performance installation)John Eagle
A sound/performance installation exploring the sonic, social, and physical properties of water in a closed ecological system.
Terra Firma: NewGroundsMarta Wisniewska
A temporary installation constructed from raw dirt that celebrates the structural and aesthetic qualities of raw earth as a sustainable construction method, as well as an experiment in determining the most enduring and aesthetic compositions of aggregate, clay, and raw dirt.
African Cinema and Media (Transnational Perspectives)Rejoice Abutsa
A critical podcast that engages cinema and media practitioners on topics around production, distribution, and reception of African media.
Hymns From A Burning HouseSydney Maubert
This work is an experiment in simulating the haptics of Haitian dispossession. It reflects on the way that heritage elides the boundaries of the spiritual and domestic, between media and heritage. The exhibition includes a 5x5' handmade beaded tapestry, 12 collages, and a personal archive.