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Illustration Faculty Lauren Redniss is Named a MacArthur Fellow!

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We are pleased to announce that Illustration faculty Lauren Redniss has been named a MacArthur Fellow. Recognizing 23 exceptionally creative individuals with a track record of achievement and the potential for significant contributions in the future, the Foundation named the 2016 MacArthur Fellows. Fellows will each receive a no-strings-attached stipend, allowing recipients maximum freedom to follow their own creative visions.

“While our communities, our nation, and our world face both historic and emerging challenges, these 23 extraordinary individuals give us ample reason for hope,” said MacArthur President Julia Stasch. “They are breaking new ground in areas of public concern, in the arts, and in the sciences, often in unexpected ways. Their creativity, dedication, and impact inspire us all.”

Pictoplasma Returns to Parsons!

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PICTOPLASMA NYC 2016

Conference on Contemporary Character Design and Art

November 4th, 2016

Parsons School of Design

The Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall

The New School

66 West 12th Street

New York, NY 10011

nyc.pictoplasma.com

***Please note there are a limited number of FREE seats for New School students, faculty and staff, but you must RSVP HERE. Once we’ve reached capacity the RSVP form will shut down. But you can find details on purchasing tickets at http://nyc.pictoplasma.com

Pictoplasma returns to New York City with a dense program of inspiring artist talks, state of the art animation screenings and lively panel discussions to celebrate the next generation of character design and art! Taking place November 4th at The Auditorium of renown Parsons School of Design, the conference invites artists, producers, animators, illustrators, character designers and all creatively curious, to network and exchange strategies for tomorrow’s visual culture. 

Speakers include graphic artist and illustration master-mind Jean Jullien (FR), whose iconic ’Peace for Paris’ symbol became an instant global meme; children’s book author and illustrator You Jung Byun (US), known for her detailed narrative and commissioned work inhabited by strange beasts and lost children; everyone’s favorite gif-wunderkind Julian Glander (US), creator of bubblegum-colored digital illustration, indie games and interactive artwork, all subsumed under the catchword ‘digital toys’; animator, writer, and producer Ben Bocquelet (FR), creator of the famed animation series ‘The Amazing World of Gumball‘; Martina Paukova (SK), illustrator with an incredibly fast-paced career, whose jam-packed images in a trademark palette and Memphis-inspired patterns mirror our mundane lives in the digital age; and Jaime Álvarez, renown for his 3D rendered Mr. Kat (PE) universe, fusing pre-Columbian with contemporary kawaii aesthetics.

The conference is co-hosted by Parsons School of Design and organized by Pictoplasma, the Berlin based annual Uber-Festival for Contemporary Character Design and Art. Prior to the conference’s 5th return to NYC, the Pictoplasma Academy will be hosting a week-long intense Character Design Development course in Mexico City. 

Parsons Illustration’s Lauren Redniss awarded fellowship with New America

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We are pleased to announce that Assistant Professor of Parsons Illustration Lauren Redniss has been awarded a fellowship with New America.

The New America Fellows program supports thinkers—journalists, producers, practitioners, and scholars—whose work enhances the public conversation about the most pressing issues of our day. The full roster of 2017 fellows can be found here.

“I am pleased to welcome this latest class of fellows to New America,” Peter Bergen, New America vice president and Fellows program director, said. “The work this group of fellows will produce embodies the core values of New America. Their journalism and scholarship communicates with broad audiences, changes the way we think about policy, and represents a diversity of backgrounds and expertise.”

Lauren Redniss, a writer and artist, will work on a visual nonfiction book that tackles the question of environmental stewardship and the struggle of indigenous communities in the 21st century American Southwest. She has been a Guggenheim fellow and Artist-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History. Her most recent book, Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. She was a finalist for the National Book Award for Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout, and is also the author of Century Girl: 100 Years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies.

Launch screening & discussion: The Phantasmagoria of Offense: the male version

AMT faculty Jess Irish will debut her animated film lyric, The Phantasmagoria of Offense: the male version this Thursday, July 7th at 7pm at The Center (208 W. 13th St Room 310 New York, NY 10011​)​.

Open to the public.

The Phantasmagoria of Offense is an animated film lyric by Jess Irish on the danger of image suppression. In this “male version” these images are limited to the male body and the cultural anxiety around expressions of vulnerability, homosexual desire or questioning the dominant paradigm. The political ramifications of image suppression during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s is questioned alongside the well-intended requests for “trigger warnings.” If there is a take away message, it is that censorship is not an abstraction. It has a body count.

FREE Debut Screening of Absurdist Comedy, “Bugs” – July 6, 8 PM

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July 6, 8pm
Orientation Room (“Bark” room) M104
2 West 13th Street, lobby level
New York, NY 10003

FREE! (seating is limited, first come, first served)

“Bugs”—the debut feature film from performance artists Life of a Craphead—is a satire about a bug society and its most powerful family.

Featuring situations like a university lecture gone wrong and a failed SNL episode, “Bugs” presents the absurdity of life within a patriarchal society obsessed with success. The DIY film sets the Bug universe right in the middle of the real world, creating multiple layers of reality that interact with each other. Produced over 2011-2015 with a large cast and crew of artists and comedians.

“Funny-furious”
—Canadian Art

“Bugs is one of the strangest, funniest, most mystifying and most profound contemporary films I know.”
—Sheila Heti

“Bugs lets loose theatre, comedy and some great outsiders into the streets of Toronto. It simply reclaims and renames all found there — a familiar world that is completely new and already dirty. It is hard not to leave the cinema with changed eyes, seeing all that is Bugs when you are back out in the streets.”
—Margaux Williamson

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For more information about the film, visit the website.

Launch party for The Storyteller by Evan Turk

storyteller09Books of Wonder is delighted to host the launch party for EVAN TURK‘s debut work as BOTH author and illustrator. You and your young readers and listeners won’t want to miss The Storyteller, an original folktale that celebrates the power of stories and storytelling by this 2015 Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Honor recipient.

Long, long ago, like a pearl around a grain of sand, the Kingdom of Morocco formed at the edge of the great, dry Sahara. It had fountains of cool, refreshing water to quench the thirst of the desert, and storytellers to bring the people together.

But as the kingdom grew, the people forgot the dangers of the desert, and they forgot about the storytellers, too. All but one young boy, who came to the Great Square for a drink and found something that quenched his thirst even better: wonderful stories. As he listened to the last storyteller recount the Endless Drought, and the Glorious Blue Water Bird, he discovered the power of a tale well told.

Acclaimed illustrator EVAN TURK has created a stunning multidimensional story within a story that will captivate the imagination and inspire a new generation of young storytellers. So make sure you’re here on Thursday, June 30th when you can meet EVAN TURK and have him sign copies of all of his wonderful picture books! Ages 3-6. Thursday, June 30th6-8pm.

Call for Submissions: Spark Animation 2016

 

Festival + Conference + Business Symposium + Career Fair
Celebrating Inspiration & Innovation in the World of Animation

From October 20 to 23, Spark CG will host the 9th annual SPARK ANIMATION Festival. Part conference and part festival, SPARK ANIMATION thrives on bringing together industry experts with newcomers, and that principle extends into the festival which provides a showcase for both established filmmakers and fresh new talent, and over the years has included a number of projects which have gone on to win Academy Awards – most recently Bear Story which won the Oscar for Animated Short Film and which played SPARK ANIMATION in 2014. Visit our archive for previous editions of the festival.

With an eclectic mix of styles, languages and a Jury of world class talent, SPARK ANIMATION has become the premiere animation festival in Vancouver!

SPARK ANIMATION 2016 will feature a series of regional, national and international short and feature films, filmmaker workshops and mixers.

We are looking for animated projects from all over the world:
• Animated Feature Films
• Animated Short Films
• Animated Student Projects
• Animated Music Videos
• Animated Commercials & PSA
• Game Cinematics & Trailers

Accepted Styles
• Computer animation (2D & 3D)
• Traditional animation
• Stop-motion animation

Important Dates
Festival: October 20 – 23
Conference: October 21 – 22
Business Symposium: October 21
Career Fair: October 22

 

Click Here To Learn More and Submit

Parsons Festival: 2016 International Salon of Illustration, Animation and Comics (BFA Illustration Senior Show)

Join us for this annual exhibition of work by Seniors in the BFA Illustration program. Thesis projects in illustration, comics, picture-books, illuminated objects and animation will be on display.

2 West 13th St, 8th Floor

10:00am – 9:00pm, open to the public

Reception 5:00pm – 8:00pm

5 pm: Book Launch for “Recess,” this year’s edition of Words & Pictures, a journal of visual-narrative essays featuring work by senior class members. Join us for a celebration of the accomplishments of these graduating students.

6 pm: Welcoming remarks.