CAA News Today

STATEMENT

As a member of CAA, I have been a witness to its progress in different directions and aspects. At this moment of time, however, I am more interested to see CAA further grow in diversity and inclusion of subjects, membership and global connections. Given the current worldwide calls to decolonize art history and practice, CAA can play a pivotal role to facilitate this in the US, and consequently in a wider sphere of influence. For the survival, strengthening and to remain effective, this is the future direction I see for CAA. Moreover, my goal as an art historian who specializes in modern Arab art is to continue to reinforce the field of study that I helped build in academia and push for its further recognition and inclusion in the canon of art history as an equal sphere of knowledge, history and production. It is within these two interrelated scopes that I would locate my contributions and accomplishments as a board member. I want to see CAA become a more active participant in exacting change in the fields it represents and I want to see Arab art become part of its mainstream representation.

Download Nada Shabout’s Resume

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STATEMENT

I am running for the CAA Board because, as both an artist and an educator, my mission is to cultivate a creative space for all further. Working under an art institution as an Assistant professor and mentor regularly teach me this; that creative opportunity, freedom, and accessibility are of utmost importance. One of the most rewarding experiences for me has been teaching diverse groups of first-year students, and senior thesis students from all over the world and developing lesson plans for inter-disciplinarian practices and Art History. This environment profoundly resonates with my creative work around the politics of inclusion within my own art practice. In addition to serving as an educator, I have extensive advising experience with students of color as coordinator of the Altos de Chavon/Parsons partnership, advising Dominican and Latinx students through their college experience. Through this mentoring experience, I have also reached out to African American, Asian, and Middle Eastern students to navigate them through school and make sure their communities are represented. I also organize lectures and activities to both maintain and cultivate those communities within the university to help expose them to opportunities within their fields. As a board member, my immediate priorities would include diversifying our membership through community outreach, artistically and politically engaging more people, and facilitating more democratic decision-making within a renowned association. I am eager to play a role in utilizing the CAA’s resources to continue supporting artists, aligning myself with its academic, creative, and professional values. I believe the CAA needs more artists serving on its board to ensure a cohesive, effective, and grounded advocacy of the arts. The CAA is the body that ties our art advocacy work to our communities. I wish to uphold its inclusive legacy.

Download Scherezade Garcia-Vazquez’s Resume

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STATEMENT

I am an independent curator from Mexico City with vast experience in assembling international transdisciplinary exhibitions. My curatorial practice mainly revolves around exploring the relationships between body and territory through different artistic mediums. My research touches on topics of migration, feminism, politics of visibility and space. I am interested in assembling exhibitions that put into question gender binary concepts and propose alternative dynamics of power between bodies and spaces. A very important aspect of my practice is to gather artists from different backgrounds in order to observe how they approach the concept of territory. From my ongoing research about bodies and spaces I have become very interested in the notion of representation.

Download Ixchel Ledesma’s Resume

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STATEMENT

It’s been a good number of years since that brisk January morning when I had my first interview for a full-time teaching position at the CAA conference career center. What would be my first of dozens of annual conferences was dizzying — I was surrounded by so many others who also were passionate about the disciplines that fueled me. At that early stage of my career, I hadn’t realized I was beginning a lifelong relationship with a multifaceted arts organization.

As a senior faculty member at Kean University, where I hold the title of Distinguished Professor in the Michael Graves College, and through my role as a Co-Chair of Design Incubation, I have dedicated a great deal of time to mentoring junior faculty. Engaged inquiry enhances my career; I work to ensure others can pursue their research interests productively, as well as connect scholarship and teaching. At Kean University, I actively guide junior faculty through reappointment and tenure, usher their career pursuits of scholarship, and introduce them to editors, agents and arts organizations, such as CAA, Design Incubation, AIGA, and the One Club, among others. At Design Incubation, I work with our Research Fellows during our annual program and beyond to encourage and facilitate their projects.

With extensive graduate coursework in art history, a Master of Fine Arts in painting, a graphic design practice, and twenty-three published books and numerous articles, I am in a unique position to understand how visual artists, art historians, designers and educators can collaborate and cross pollinate. Publishers have translated many of my books into Spanish, Chinese and Russian, including Graphic Design Solutions, 6th ed., Advertising by Design, 3rd ed., Draw!, and Nimble: Thinking Creatively in the Digital Age. Many of my published articles bridge the divide between visual arts disciplines and draw upon other arts, such as dance, literature, and music. Whether fostering T-shape thinking in the classroom, or prompting colleagues to utilize a bisociative framework, I seek to expand ways to interpret the world.

For years, I have worked relentlessly to foster inclusion and diversity in the graphic design and advertising professions. I received a Human Rights Educator award for my work with The Enough Project.

I want to represent all disciplines, widen reach, foster tolerance, and increase understanding to help guide the future direction of CAA. Empowerment of members. Advocacy. Diversity. Inclusion. Access. I hope to take a lead on these urgent issues, providing lifetime career contexts for members, working towards CAA’s goals.

For CAA to stay agile, we must focus on dynamic career demands and how culture, technology and the global economy are transforming the visual arts professions. Such transformations deserve vigorous debate. Through greater outreach to designers, art directors, architects, and educators and building affiliations, we can establish wider participation and greater engagement. As a design educator, an artist, author, a chair of Design Incubation, and faculty mentor, promoting the visual arts comes naturally to me. I hope you will allow me to enlarge my lifelong relationship with CAA.

Download Robin Landa’s Resume

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