News

• August 19, 2021

  “Kiraiñia,” a Documentary Film by Juan Castrillón, was Awarded the Honourable Mention by the International Council for Traditional Music as part of the ICTM Prizes 2021

  This ethnographic documentary focuses on the kiraiñia, a long flute from the Cubeo musical culture, and the rich cultural heritage of the indigenous communities in Vaupés, Colombia. The film poses questions about the preservation and revival of disappearing music via personal narratives and deconstructing colonial ideology.

• July 1, 2021

  2021 AAPI Artists Support Grants Announced

  We are happy to announce the grants awarded from our recent call for proposals - for projects led by or primarily serving Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) artists and practitioners within the Penn community. We are supporting fourteen projects, which represent a diverse collection of practices and are being led by a wide range of Penn community members including five individual students and one student group, four alumni, three staff and one faculty member. 

• June 8, 2021

  Turning an Archaeological Practice on its Head

  Penn’s Megan Kassabaum, takes a wider view that spans both time and geography by focusing on understanding widespread practices. Since arriving at Penn, Kassabaum has focused on tracking the long history of Native American platform mounds in the eastern United States. In her new book, “A History of Platform Mound Ceremonialism: Finding Meaning in Elevated Ground,” Kassabaum conceives of a new analytical approach, one that’s forward-facing rather than backward-looking. That leads her to reach a different conclusion about platform mounds.

• June 8, 2021

  ‘Traveling Black:’ The Fight for Freedom on Roads, Rail, and in the Air

  University of Pennsylvania historian MIA BAY explores the fight for freedom on the roads, rail, and in the sky in her new book, Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance. After emancipation and as mass transportation systems developed, Black Americans had hopes of free mobility but they were quickly quashed by white supremacy and Jim Crow laws on trains, buses, planes and along highways.

• June 8, 2021

  Mystics and Visionaries: A Fine Arts Seminar

  Jackie Tileston, an associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, designed a seminar using af Klint’s work as a jumping off point to examine the ways in which mystical and alternative forms of knowledge have fed artistic practices, both in the past and for contemporary artists in cultures around the globe. The seminar involved a wide range of readings, lectures, discussions, projects, and experiential exercises with visiting lecturers from neuroscience, religious studies, and positive psychology. They studied contemporary artists influenced by Eastern philosophies to Tantra paintings and Tibetan sand mandalas to Carl Jung’s “Red Book,” in which the psychoanalyst explored the unconscious mind in a massive tome of his own art, calligraphy, and writings, which wasn’t published until 2009.