There’s always something exciting happening at the School of Art + Design! From guest lectures and conferences to exhibitions, there’s something for everyone to enjoy. Most events are free and open to the public. Stay informed about the latest happenings by joining our email list to receive updates on upcoming events.
1:00–2:00 p.m.
Enjoy stress-free time together with disabled and neurodivergent graduate students from across campus. Share experiences, exchange resources, or consult with a GE from the Accessible Education Center. Refreshments served.
5:00–6:00 p.m.
It’s not too early to strategize about your future career. Come learn about the many career preparation and professional development tools, resources, and hands-on guidance that the university has to offer, and that you are paying for with your tuition! Presented by Paolo from the gradCareers team at the Division of Graduate Studies in partnership with the Office of International Students & Scholar Services.
Remote presentation (zoom) – register at https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/89a8ef6623894196bb14d18114866140
10:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
The School of Art + Design annual Career Futures event connects students with professionals who represent career paths in arts, art & technology, and product design. Professionals share their career-path stories, their experiences in their fields/industries, and their advice for students.
January 31, 2025, Career Futures Schedule
The following panel discussions and review sessions will be held:
10:00 am - 11:30 am Product Design Panel Discussion – LA 197 Panelists: Zach Meyer, Mica Russo, Elizabeth Zarro Moderator: Wonhee Arndt
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm Art Panel Discussion – LA 274 Panelists: Yaelle Amir, Sara Krajewski, Tyler Stoll, Julian Watts Moderator: Anya Kivarkis
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Art & Technology Panel Discussion – LA 197 Panelists: Michael Cooper, Aidan Grealish, Kyle Nelson Moderator: Colin Ives
Post-Panel Sessions – These will be held in the same location as their respective panels.
11:30 am-12:30 pm: Product Design - Portfolio Review sessions will be held for product design students, up to 12 students max. 1:30-2:30 pm: Art - Individual “Ask Me Anything” sessions with Art panelists will be held for art students, no registration required. 3:30-4:30 pm: Art & Technology - Portfolio Review sessions with Art & Technology panelists will be held for art & technology students, up to 12 students max.Please visit the College’s “College of Design Career Week” page for links to the individual registrations.
Connect with our Alumni Professionals!
4:00 p.m.
University of Oregon Visiting Artist Lecture Series Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
“My work primarily focuses on sculpture and extends into drawing, image, text, and public projects. I aim to defamiliarize the ordinary, encouraging us to rethink how we form associations, assign value, and construct categories of identity, disposability, and loss. This approach mirrors my personal history, as it engages with experiences of disjunction and dislocation and reflects their lasting effects.
I challenge the boundaries of the "Pop Art" object by deconstructing the commodity and its glossy, overconfident surface—its scale, ambition, and failure to fulfill the promises of progress and emancipation. Inspired by the “poor materials” philosophy, I utilize humble materials to bridge the gap between art and everyday life, reconstructing objects to reveal their latent vulnerability and inherent decay. By incorporating architectural principles, I investigate how subtle, ephemeral, and often overlooked structures shape and sustain civilization—from domestic spaces, the feminine, and the infra-ordinary to the anti-heroic. I inquire: what forms provide habitability and order, contributing to civilization’s fabric yet remaining visually or politically unnoticed or silenced? What do we build when we build?” - Ester Partegàs, 2024
Ester Partegàs (Barcelona, 1972) has shown extensively nationally and internationally. Most recent shows include The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2025), Ballroom Marfa (2024), TEA Tenerife (2023), Palazzo Delle Exposizione, Rome (2023) NoguerasBlanchard, Madrid (2022); Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2021); Essex Flowers, NY (2021); Pure Joy, Marfa TX (2020); Conde Duque, Madrid (2020); The Drawing Center, NY (2019); the Museum of the City of NY (2019); Transborder Biennial/Bienal Transfronteriza, El Paso Museum of Art + Museo de Arte Ciudad Juárez (2018), MACBA Barcelona (2018).
She has been the recipient of the 2022-2023 Rome Prize for Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome, a 2014 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship, and a 2004 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2004), among others. An artist in residence at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; MacDowell. She has been faculty at the Yale School of Art, Skowhegan, Virginia Commonwealth University, SUNY Purchase, and since 2017 teaches at Parsons School of Design. Based in New York City, she is a part-time resident of Marfa, TX, and Barcelona.
4:00 p.m.
University of Oregon Visiting Artist Lecture Series Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
Alex Soth will discuss his origins as an artist and the evolution of his practice. Along with highlighting celebrated projects like “Sleeping by the Mississippi” and his latest book, “Advice for Young Artists,” special attention will be given to the value of failure and the art of starting over.
Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has published over thirty books including Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), NIAGARA (2006), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015), I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating (2019), A Pound of Pictures (2022), and Advice for Young Artists (2024). Soth has had over fifty solo exhibitions including survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008), the Walker Art Center in Minnesota (2010), Media Space in London (2015), and the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2024). Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2013). In 2008, Soth created Little Brown Mushroom, a multi-media enterprise focused on visual storytelling. Soth is represented by Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Hammons Gallery in Minneapolis, Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, Loock Galerie in Berlin, and is a member of Magnum Photos.
11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Connect with International GEs across campus to share experiences, exchange knowledge, and develop a sustainable professional practice with a network of support. Collaborate on skills and lessons learned at the Teaching Engagement Program's International GE Winter Workshop. Drop-ins are welcome and lunch will be served.
4:00 p.m.
University of Oregon Visiting Artist Lecture Series Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
In this presentation, Ari Melenciano will share a survey of her recent works that use imagination in critical forms. Each reveals vibrant opportunities to imagine the worlds within and around us with depth and expanding possibility, ranging from explorations of the collective subconscious with AI, collecting ancestral memories through sound and dance, or through archiving future worlds through celestial botany.
Ari Melenciano has cultivated an expansive practice within the arts, technology, design, culture, and pedagogy. Her natural ability to combine many disciplines reveals their interconnectedness and reimagines their conventions for new possibilities. Her art practice ranges from using improvisational dance as an ethnomusicological research instrument, to exploring AI through both critical and imaginative lenses, to sonic composition using botanical data. Her work has been exhibited around the world from Dubai's Museum of the Future to the Studio Museum in Harlem. She's a frequent international public speaker, and occasionally designs and teaches courses at New York University, Hunter College, Parsons, and the Pratt Institute. She's the founder of Afrotectopia, a social institution that imagines new possibilities at the nexus of art, design, technology, and culture. Afrotectopia has taken many forms including festivals, think tanks, summer camp, adult continued education programming, international residency, and incubators. Currently, Afrotectopia is on a book tour to promote their recently published kitchen table art book titled, Black Metal, which came out of an incubator between Afrotectopia, MIT Media Lab's Space Exploration Initiative, and NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. And previously, she was a creative technologist at Google's Creative Lab. Some work she did while at Google included creating technologies using machine learning on hardware devices the size of a finger, contributing creative direction for the Google for Africa campaign, and creative strategy for generative AI development.
10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
The Division of Graduate Studies invites you to a one-day conference showcasing the research, scholarship, and creative expressions of UO graduate students. The forum regularly showcases the work of more than 100 students representing more than 35 disciplines. Join us for the popular poster session and the panel presentations!
To participate, all graduate-level students are invited to submit a proposal by April 16, 2025. All accepted posters will be judged. Posters are categorized by field; first place in each category will win $300. Panels will instead be pre-selected. All accepted panels will receive $250 per panelist.
For more information, go to https://graduatestudies.uoregon.edu/forum
9:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
New work by Vincent Croce
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Map to location of Foyer Gallery in Lawrence Hall