About
This Website
In this showcase, the School of Art + Art History + Design presents the culminating thesis work of its graduating graduate students in all fields who are receiving Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Master of Arts (MA), or Master of Design (MDes) degrees. Their research covers a wide range of styles, mediums, and topics.
Work on this website was primarily done by Oliver Maurice Norred, a senior in Interaction Design. Semi-retired staff member Jeanette Mills was the website editor.
Images
Photography of the 2022 MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery was done by Jueqian Fang, Everything Time Studio. Other photos were provided by the graduating students.
Contributing writers
Dr. Jordan Amirkhani
Amirkhani is Curator of Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought — a non-profit institute for research, publishing, and exhibitions of contemporary art based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to taking on this role, Amirkhani was a Lecturer in Art History at American University in Washington, DC, from 2018–2021. Amirkhani has published scholarship on the Dada painter Francis Picabia, the British conceptual art collective Art & Language, Crow artist Wendy Red Star, and the Nashville-based photographer Vesna Pavlović. Recent curatorial projects include Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye for the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, co-curated with Andrea Andersson and Taylor Renee Aldridge; Yto Barrada: Ways to Baffle the Wind at MASS MoCA, co-curated with Andrea Andersson; and the 2021 Atlanta Biennial for the Atlanta Contemporary.
Aurora San Miguel
San Miguel is an artist, writer, and filmmaker working in Seattle, WA.
Kascha Semonovitch
Semonovitch holds a PhD in philosophy, MA in Philosophy and the Arts, and MFA. She is co-editor of two books of philosophical essays, Merleau-Ponty at the Limits and Phenomenologies of the Stranger, and author of numerous essays on early twentieth-century thought, recently collected in Simone Weil and Continental Philosophy and The Bloomsbury Companion to Arendt. She has received a MacDowell Colony Fellowship and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Seattle, teaches at the Hugo House, and runs a small art gallery, The Vestibule.
Heidi Biggs
Biggs is a current PhD candidate and interdisciplinary researcher at Penn State University in the College of Information Sciences and Technology and is a proud alumnus of UW’s MDes program. They study sustainable Human-Computer Interaction and posthuman approaches to the design of technologies.
About the School
The School of Art + Art History + Design is the center for creative innovation and study at the University of Washington, one of the world’s leading public research institutions. The School’s commitment to diversity extends to the recruitment of faculty, staff, and students who exhibit a dedication to creative and academic excellence and who demonstrate the ability to work with a diverse spectrum of populations. The School’s focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and the development of new practices enhances both studio and classroom learning as well as fostering dynamic engagement and critical discourse. Our students are inspired to learn through a rigorous and creative academic experience, competitive internships, and international opportunities. Learning from influential faculty, alumni, visiting artists, designers, and scholars, students of our undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs investigate and create in an environment of possibility. To learn more, visit our website.
The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish People of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.
Our Faculty
Jamie Walker, Director