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New Muse 4tet, an ensemble led by jazz faculty member Gwen Laster, was awarded a $11,300 Performance Plus grant by Chamber Music America, a national network for ensemble music professionals. The grant will enable New Muse 4tet to record new music, building off of the successes of their debut album, Blue Lotus. The grant will also enable coaching sessions from jazz pianist and composer Michele Rosewoman, helping New Muse 4tet build new works through the lenses of jazz composition and Caribbean folkloric idioms.

Jeffrey Gibson, artist in residence at Bard College, was once advised to tone down his work: to make it less colorful, less bold. “We’ve been dismissed as garish and too much, because of our use of color,” Gibson told the New York Times. Now, Gibson will be the first Native artist to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale with a solo exhibition—his embrace of color having propelled him to this stage. In a profile of Gibson for the Times, Jillian Steinhauer traced Gibson’s history as an artist, his preparation for the Biennale, and his relationship to the US. “I have a complicated relationship with the United States,” he said. His project for the Biennale “aims to interweave a Native American narrative with other histories of struggle and freedom,” borrowing its title from a poem by Bard alumna Layli Long Soldier MFA ’13. “‘The space in which to place me’ seemed like this idea of both decentralizing things and making things central that are oftentimes on the periphery,” Gibson said. The 2024 Venice Biennale runs April 20 through November 24, 2024.

Walid Raad, currently distinguished visiting professor of photography, will begin his tenured appointment at Bard College in fall 2024 as professor of photography in the Division of the Arts. Raad is an artist whose works include photography, video, mixed media installations, and performances. His works include the creation of The Atlas Group, a 15-year project between 1989 and 2004 about the contemporary history of Lebanon, as well as the ongoing projects Scratching on Things I Could Disavow and Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut). His books include Walkthrough, The Truth Will Be Known When The Last Witness Is Dead, My Neck Is Thinner Than A Hair, and Let’s Be Honest The Weather Helped.

Raad’s solo exhibitions have been featured at institutions including the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza (Madrid), Louvre (Paris), The Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden), ICA (Boston, USA), Museo Jumex (Mexico City, Mexico), Kunsthalle Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland), The Whitechapel Art Gallery (London, UK), Festival d’Automne (Paris, France), Kunsten Festival des Arts (Brussels, Belgium), The Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany). 

His works have also been shown in Documenta 11 and 13 (Kassel, Germany), The Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), Whitney Bienniale 2000 and 2002 (New York, USA), Sao Paulo Bienale (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Istanbul Biennal (Istanbul, Turkey), Homeworks I and IV (Beirut, Lebanon) and other institutions across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. In addition, Raad is the recipient multiple grants, prizes, and awards, including the Aachener Kunstpreis (2018), ICP Infinity Award (2016), the Hasselblad Award (2011), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009), the Alpert Award in Visual Arts (2007), the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2007), the Camera Austria Award (2005), and a Rockefeller Fellowship (2003). Raad was named Harvard University’s Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies (AFVS) 2024 Solomon Fellow and is in residence at AFVS from April 7 to 13, 2024.

Bard College senior Melonie Bisset ’24, a film and electronic arts major, has won a highly selective Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for the 2024 summer session. CLS, a program of the US Department of State, provides recipients with overseas placements that include intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. Each summer, American undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at US colleges and universities across the country, spend 8 to 10 weeks learning one of 13 languages at an intensive study abroad institute. The CLS Program is designed to promote rapid language gains and essential intercultural fluency in regions that are critical to US national security and economic prosperity. The languages include Arabic, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu.

Bisset will study Portuguese at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The CLS Program in Rio de Janeiro provides a language learning environment designed to cover the equivalent of one academic year of university-level Portuguese study during an eight-week period. While in Brazil, Bisset will live with a local host family, eating breakfast with them each morning and spending free weekends with them. Host families help students integrate into daily life in Rio de Janeiro, introduce them to their extended networks, and create opportunities for them to practice their Portuguese in a more relaxed setting. Students also meet with a language partner several hours per week to practice conversational language skills and explore the city, planning their own activities with their language partners based on their interests.

Bisset writes that her interests have always been at the intersection of multiple cultures. That is where she feels most like herself—where she belongs. Accordingly, that is why Brazilian culture has always captivated her: its intense mix of diverse cultures. Aside from music and dance, she is also attracted to Brazilian filmmakers engaged in debates surrounding ecocinema, poverty, and multiculturalism. Her ultimate goal is to create a US-based nonprofit that facilitates cross cultural exchange and understanding through language and art.

“I am extremely grateful to receive the Critical Language Scholarship, and even more excited for the opportunity to study Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro this summer,” says Bisset. “As a multicultural-multiracial English, Mandarin, and Spanish speaker, a certified TESOL instructor, a filmmaker, an Argentine Tango dancer, a translator, and most importantly a story teller, my aspiration has always been to facilitate greater intercultural understanding through engagement with the arts and languages. I hope to establish my own organization dedicated to these dreams one day. This immersive language and cultural experience will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on my personal life and career development.”

The CLS Program is part of a US government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain critical language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to US economic competitiveness and national security. Approximately 500 competitively selected American students at US colleges and universities participate in the CLS Program each year.

“Critical” languages are those that are less commonly taught in US schools, but are essential for America’s engagement with the world. CLS plays an important role in preparing US students for the 21st century’s globalized workforce, increasing American competitiveness, and contributing to national security. CLS scholars serve as citizen ambassadors, representing the diversity of the United States abroad and building lasting relationships with people in their host countries.

For further information about the Critical Language Scholarship or other exchange programs offered by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit  http://www.clscholarship.org/ and https://studyabroad.state.gov/.