Supporting and Promoting the Arts at the University of Pennsylvania
The Philadelphia Inquirer published an Opinion piece by Weitzman School of Design Senior Research Scholar Paul Farber. Farber discusses the significant impact the pandemic has had on Philly's arts sector and the various ways in which elected officials, regional philanthropic organizations, and residents can make a difference in the weeks and months to come. As Farber notes, "recovery cannot wait."
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April 1, 2020
The Annenberg School Welcomes 6 New Visiting Scholars and Postdoctoral Fellows
Earlier this semester, the Annenberg School announced six new visiting scholars and postdoctoral fellows, including filmmakers Amitanshu Das and Maori Karmael Holmes. These scholars will research alongside and collaborate with Annenberg faculty, staff, and students for anywhere from one semester to several years.
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March 27, 2020
Penn Nursing Shares COVID-19 Design Challenges, Including Code Life Ventilator Challenge
With potentially 70% of the population on the brink of being infected by COVID-19, our worldwide health care systems will be strained beyond their limits. Even now, there aren't enough ventilators to save everyone who needs respiratory support, and doctors are having to make agonizing decisions about who to save. Our modern world provides the means to produce these life-saving ventilators thanks to widespread rapid manufacturing tools—3D printers, CNC machines— combined with low-cost computers (i.e. smartphones, Arduinos, etc.), but what we're missing is a design. We need YOU to design a simple, maintainable, easy-to-manufacture ventilator to provide life support to COVID patients anywhere in the world.
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March 27, 2020
COVID-19 Resources for our Community
This week, we decided to focus our newsletter on assistance: many ways that you can both seek and provide assistance during the COVID-19 crisis. We will feature more online arts content in future issues. But, for right now, we think that the focus should be on help and how we can individually and collectively maintain health and hope.
The University of Pennsylvania has recently released a set of guidelines pertaining to COVID-19, which include restrictions on events and campus access, and the temporary closure of Penn’s arts centers. The Sachs Program will do its best to update our website to reflect any resultant cancellations. We also encourage you to visit the host sites for all events to confirm details. Ongoing events, such as exhibitions, will remain listed on our site for the time being.
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation’s 2020 Grant Cycle is now closed, and we have suspended our Ben Art Bucks program for the remainder of the academic year, due to COVID-19. We will announce the 2020 grant recipients in April. The 2021 grant cycle will open in September. Please sign up for our newsletter to stay informed of important deadlines.
The Sachs Program’s grantmaking supports innovative arts activities throughout the Penn community, providing funding to Penn faculty, staff, students, departments, programs, and centers. Our vision is that the arts at Penn are valued and embraced as a creative catalyst, driving innovation, inspiration, and action.
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Monday October 5Esra Akcan: Right-to-Heal: Architecture and Transitional Justice
Esra Akcan is an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for European Studies at Cornell AAP. Akcan has authored more than 100 articles on the intertwined histories of Europe and West Asia, critical and postcolonial theory, architectural photography, migration and diasporas, translation, and contemporary architecture.
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Wednesday October 7The Cunningham Lecture: Michael Webb
Michael Webb was born in Henley-on-Thames, England, in 1937. He studied architecture intermittently at the then Regent Street Polytechnic School of Architecture (now the University of Westminster) between the years 1953 and 1972. A project he designed during his fourth year at the Polytechnic found its way, owing to a curious set of circumstances, into an exhibition at MoMA New York entitled "Visionary Architecture" in 1960.
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Monday November 2Sophie Hochhäusl: Memories of the Resistance: The Defiant Life of a Female Architect, 1938-1945
Sophie Debiasi Hochhäusl is an Assistant Professor for Architectural History and Theory at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Before joining the Faculty at the Weitzman School, she was the Frieda L. Miller Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study at Harvard University. This event is free and open to the public. Reception to follow.
The exhibition Re-materialize features three artists who have built their practices using materials sourced from discarded packaging, personal items, and architectural elements: Ghanaian-Nigerian artist El Anatsui, Brooklyn-based sculptor Shari Mendelson, and California-based artist Alison Saar.
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation’s 2019 SHIP Intern, Tias Volker (C ’21), developed a map that highlights arts resources and centers across Penn’s campus. While not every resource could be included, The Sachs Program encourages you to use this map to explore the breadth of arts offerings at Penn.