Eskenazi's Megan Young named Immersive Lab Fellow at Penn State
Megan Young, senior lecturer of digital art and digital art area head in the Eskenazi School, has been named the inaugural Immersive Environments Lab (IEL) Fellow at the Stuckeman School in the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State. Young will use the IEL as a space for an immersive workshop and/or installation and give a public presentation of her work.
Eskenazi's Malcolm Smith launches Anderson Lecture Series at Penn State
Eskenazi School Professor of Ceramics Malcolm Mobutu Smith launches the annual Anderson Lecture Series at Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture’s School of Visual Arts September 23. Smith's "works are guided by the intersections of musical impulse, graffiti art and playful organic abstraction."
Drawing by Eskenazi's van Strien acquired by British archive
A graphite drawing inspired by a Norwegian steel plant by Miller Architecture Program faculty Sam van Strien was recently acquired by Drawing Matter, a British organization that explores the role of drawing in architectural thought and practice. Their collection includes works ranging from the Renaissance to the present.
A photographer's camera and a country's reckoning with an ugly chapter
Eskenazi Professor Osamu James Nakagawa's first impression of the sites where Japanese Americans had been incarcerated during World War 2 was one of "nothingness." Currently on view at Pictura Gallery, his exhibition "Trace" represents his efforts to grapple with that void. Indiana Public Media reports.
Trades District Block Party brings IU and Bloomington together to celebrate progress, shape future
Eskenazi School faculty and students are contributing to a collaborative effort among IU, Amplify Bloomington, the City of Bloomington, and others to support economic development, entrepreneurship, and creative placemaking in Bloomington's Trades District. A block party will showcase work in progress September 26.
Nakagawa's "Trace" at Pictura Gallery covered in Indiana Daily Student
In his series “Trace,” Eskenazi School Professor Osamu James Nakagawa combines traditional landscape photography and alternative techniques to comment on the experiences of Japanese Americans incarcerated in camps during World War II. The Indiana Daily Student covered the exhibition on view at Bloomington's Pictura Gallery until October 30.
All About Photo covers Nakagawa's Trace at Pictura Gallery
Trace, on view at Pictura Gallery in Bloomington, Ind. from September 4 to October 30, 2026, presents a new photographic series by Osamu James Nakagawa that connects his present-day experience as a Japanese-American with past generations. All About Photo magazine covered the exhibition.
IU anthropologist and artists examine humanity's future in Homo Terminus collaboration
An exploration of the prospect of human extinction, "Homo Terminus" is a collection of essays by IU professor of anthropology Shane Greene illustrated by original works by three artists, including Raphael Cornford, a 2016 alumnus of the Eskenazi School's M.F.A. program in printmaking. An exhibition launches the book's release Friday, September 4 at the I Fell Gallery in downtown Bloomington.
Rural Placemaking Studio receives READI 2.0 grant to expand public design work in rural Indiana
IU’s Rural Placemaking Studio will expand its capacity to serve communities across Indiana through a $158,413 READI 2.0 Arts & Culture grant, which will support the purchase of an industrial printer and project materials, plus additional faculty support for the Eskenazi School students involved in the design and fabrication process.
A time capsule in steel words: The story of (C)olumn
Eskenazi faculty Jon Racek and Jiangmei Wu designed the steel sculpture "(C)olumn" over a decade ago, crowdsourcing the words that form it. The artwork stands next to Seminary Park, just down Second Street from the site where Racek's "Undulate" will be installed in September at Hopewell Commons.
New Montgomery Main Street Park shaped by community vision, IU collaboration
Through a partnership between Montgomery residents and leaders and IU's Center for Rural Engagement and Eskenazi School students and faculty, a shared vision for downtown Montgomery, Ind. became Main Street Park—a welcoming community space designed to bring people together for generations.
Ryan White's dream was IU. Now, he lives on campus among the students.
As a high school student, Ryan White's dream was to attend IU. The teenager whose battle against AIDS and the discrimination its sufferers faced won him admiration around the world passed away before he could make it to Bloomington. Eskenazi faculty member Melanie Pennington's memorial to the young activist has finally brought Ryan to campus, the Indy Star reports.
The Indiana fashion tradition of senior cords is having a revival in the fashion world. The Eskenazi School's Sage Collection houses more than 75 examples of senior cords, which function as "wearable yearbooks" from the 1920s to the 1970s, when students painted their garments with their "individual symbology."
IU Comp Design grad develops capstone project for market
Recent Eskenazi School grad Gage Pratt (B.S. '26, Comprehensive Design) developed a way to put a race number on athletes that streamlines a process that has remained in place for decades. The Fishers, Ind. native was profiled by a hometown media outlet for his innovation, called AeroBib.
Office Hours: Graphic design, letterpress, and designing while studying
Lecturer and co-area head of Graphic Design Alexander Landerman is a Career Connections Fellow, one of nearly 400 College faculty members who redevelop courses to amplify the career skills they convey. The College profiles Landerman in its Office Hours series.
WSJ names IU painting alum Cowan (MFA '11) among best in New York
Paintings by Eskenazi School alumnus Ben Cowan (MFA '11) were named among the best of New York's spring art fairs in The Wall Street Journal. "For those who feel that the contemporary art world is awash in the profane," wrote the reviewer, "Mr. Cowan's work offers a taste of the sacred."
Naomi Mekonnen (B.S. '26, Interior Design) addresses fellow graduates at degree recognition ceremony
"For artists and designers comes the responsibility that we shape narratives," Naomi Mekonnen (B.S. '26, Interior Design) told her fellow graduates May 8. "We have the tools to design for new stories and sustainable systems. The world we are entering does not need replicas of what already exists. It needs designers and artists brave enough to move through uncertainty."
Merchandising alum blends sustainability and entrepreneurship in boutique
One way to buck the prospect of unemployment is to start one's own business. Combining her commitment to sustainability with her passion for fashion in her merchandising degree, IU Eskenazi School alum Sierra Shambaugh opened "Tailored Thrifts" online while still in school, expanding to brick and mortar by graduation.
Ryan White Memorial Sculpture “Keep Going” to be unveiled at Indiana Memorial Union
A bronze memorial sculpture of lauded Hoosier activist Ryan White will be installed at the Indiana Memorial Union in a public ceremony June 10 hosted by the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington. Titled "Keep Going," the sculpture is the work of Eskenazi School faculty Melanie Cooper Pennington.
IU Bloomington honors Nakagawa with Distinguished Faculty Research Award
Eskenazi School photography professor Osamu James Nakagawa has received IU Bloomington's Distinguished Faculty Research Award. Ruth N. Halls Professor and Distinguished Professor in the school's Studio Art program, Nakagawa is an internationally exhibiting artist whose current work explores the legacy of Japanese-American internment during WW2.
2026 B.F.A. shows explore identity, technology
BFA students exhibit their thesis work in digital art, graphic design, metals, painting, photography, and printmaking at the Grunwald Gallery April 21-May 2. The works "center around their lived experiences" or serve "as a lens through which to interpret the world around them."
A figurative painter whose works have been acquired by major collections of American art and a designer whose vision for healthcare and higher education spaces has improved user experience are the inaugural recipients of the Eskenazi School’s Alumni Excellence Award.
Runup to the runway: fashion design majors showcase capstone collections
Graduating fashion design majors showcased their capstone collections Thursday, April 9 in the annual Fashion Design B.A. show at Alumni Hall. In this visit to the studio, students shared the conceptual underpinnings of their collections, and how they'd borrowed media and techniques from across their Eskenazi School courses to fabricate their designs.
Turning a designer’s good idea into a real-world product, manufactured in quantity, meeting the requirements of legislators, quality control, the customer, and the C-suite is the work of a product developer. On WFIU's Nice Work, Eskenazi merchandising faculty Deb Pearson shares what students learn about the evolution from idea to inventory.
From dressing rooms to ‘Changing Rooms’: design students soft-launch new exhibit
Comprehensive design students in Lecturer Max Fertik's "Healing Commons" course have taken over a former Victoria's Secret to interrogate what a "changing room" is. The installation in the former retail space now occupied by Pillar Arts is part of MDWST Fable's exhibition "SOLACE."
10 exhibitions to see in upstate New York this April
Painting faculty Caleb Weintraub's exhibition at Perry Lawson Fine Art is among ten spring shows in upstate New York galleries recommended by Hyperallergic. Noted for "fantastical realms" that "tinker with the familiar and unfamiliar," "Both Sides of the Mirror in the Studio" is on view in the Nyack gallery through April 26.
Reducing friction on the road to innovation: Eskenazi student launches Aero Bib
The Little 500 bike race is a tradition. So are those paper number bibs cyclists and runners pin to their jerseys. But the bibs create drag, flap in the wind, and are a nuisance to put on. Cutters team rider Gage Pratt should know. So, the comprehensive design major has developed an alternative: enter Aero Bib.
MFA students are "Inspired by Inquiry" into IU Libraries' Wylie House Museum
Two of the first-year MFA students prompted to excavate IU's archives for inspiration for their own artwork chose objects in the Wylie House, home of IU's first president. The undertaking demonstrates the value of historical archives within the creative process, and the power of art to bring the past to life.
Suejin Ko: Exploring Identity in Print
In multiple shows opening at the Eskenazi School this spring, BFA candidate in Printmaking Suejin Ko will seek to “reclaim Korean culture in a Midwestern environment.” She interprets the Korean "Hanbok" garment through the medium of the artist's book at the Tangent Gallery in a show on view Friday, March 27 from 6-8 pm.
Paper City reviews “Witness Trees + Indelible Structures,” images of landscapes haunted by Japanese American incarceration during World War II by IU Distinguished Professor of Photography Osamu James Nakagawa currently on view at currently on view at Houston’s FotoFest.
Together with Carrie Mae Weems and the Starn twins, Eskenazi professor Osamu James Nakagawa has been named one of the six Top Picks among the more than 450 international artists represented at FotoFest Biennial in Houston in its 2026 edition “Global Visions – FotoFest at 40,” opening with a reception Friday, March 20.
Members of the Miller Architecture Program faculty, including newest member Sam van Strien, Daniel Luis Martinez, and Silvia Acosta, together with students, exhibit their work in the exhibition "Projective Impressions" at the 411 Gallery in Columbus. The Republic reports.
Studio art faculty Alunei is Bloomington artist of the month
Andreea Alunei's small mixed media paintings and drawings reinterpret Christian iconography and Eastern European mythology through the visual language of children’s book illustration. The visiting assistant professor in Eskenazi's Studio Art program is the Bloomington Arts Commission's featured artist for March 2026.
Artist Carrie Hott slows down the internet
Eskenazi School graphic design faculty Carrie Hott spoke with Indiana Public Media's Nice Work podcast about her project "How to Slow Internet," a "collaborative experimentation with small-scale communication technology [that explores] the large-scale communications infrastructure on which we increasingly depend."
Eskenazi's Embry, Racek are 2026 University Teaching and Service Awards honorees
Eskenazi School Teaching Professors Mary Embry (merchandising) and Jon Racek (Comprehensive Design) are among the eight faculty members and one doctoral student across three IU campuses recognized as 2026 University Teaching and Service Award honorees.
IU Bloomington’s community engagement efforts reflected in Carnegie classification
The Eskenazi School's role in the Rural Placemaking Studio has been cited as contributing to IU Bloomington's community engagement efforts, recently recognized with the prestigious 2026 Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement. IUB is one of 237 U.S. colleges and universities to receive the recognition.
Continuum Exhibition at IU's Grunwald Gallery highlights faculty work across disciplines
“Continuum: Eskenazi Faculty Exhibition 2026,” currently on view at the Grunwald Gallery of Art, brings together more than 50 artists, designers and architects from across the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design. The Indiana Daily Student published this review of the exhibition, which is on view through March 7.
Introducing IU's 2026 FSF Scholars: Pt. 2
IU junior Danaka Howard has been awarded the 2026 Fashion Scholarship Fund Case Study Scholarship and recognized as a 2026 Abloh “Post Modern” Scholar. In her award-winning case study “Reform,” the merchandising major proposed a collaboration demonstrating how luxury brands can inspire change in the fashion industry.
Introducing IU's 2026 FSF Scholars, Pt. 1
Two students in the Eskenazi School's merchandising program have carried forward IU's traditionally strong showing in the Fashion Scholarship Fund's annual case study competition. In this profile, 2026 FSF Scholar Audessa Schaefer describes her winning proposal of a product line that bridges Lululemon and Jeep.
Eskenazi School mourns passing of Sidney Eskenazi
Together with the entire Indiana University family, the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design mourns the passing of alumnus Sidney Eskenazi on January 31. With his late wife Lois, the real estate developer and philanthropist endowed both the Eskenazi School and Eskenazi Museum of Art on the Bloomington campus.
Fibers MFA to exhibit explorations of healing, women's work
Fibers MFA Ashley Lian explores the healing power of quilts and quilting in her award-winning artwork being installed at the IU Health Bloomington Hospital in February. In an MFA group show opening January 29 at McCalla, the student uses textiles to comment on women's work.
As a teenager in the 1980s, Ryan White played a transformative role in destigmatizing AIDS. A bronze bust of the late Indiana changemaker will be installed in the Indiana Memorial Union in the spring of 2026. Eskenazi faculty member Melanie Cooper Pennington spoke about creating the memorial with Indiana Public Media's Nice Work podcast.
The expansion of Centerstone's Community Engagement Center marks the first project in Columbus whose architect-of-record--Jacquelyn Brice--is a graduate of IU's Miller Architecture Program. Brice is a member of the program's founding cohort, which graduated in May 2021.
Eskenazi's Mangila exhibits "Magma" at Columbia University's Neiman Gallery
The LeRoy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University presents Magma, an exhibition by Eskenazi School Assistant Professor of Painting Dominic Mangila that explores the cross-fertilization of abstraction in painting, installation, and video. The exhibition by Mangila, a 2007 Columbia University School of the Arts M.F.A., is on view January 8 - February 13.
Eskenazi grad exhibits at Central Connecticut State University gallery
Painting alumna Barbara Neulinger (M.F.A. '92, Studio Art) exhibits recent paintings at Chen Art Gallery at Central Connecticut State University. The gallery writes that Neulinger's paintings "explore perception, nature, and the shifting relationship between inner experience and the material world." Opening January 22, the exhibition Eyes in the Forest is on view through February 20.
Transforming personal experience into art: Darby Williams named January 2026 UE Student of the Month
Darby Williams, an Eskenazi School student pursuing her BFA in studio art, has been named IU Undergraduate Education's Student of the Month. In her photography, Williams has developed "a poetic and almost mythical visual language" to address her lived experience with serious illness.
IU fashion design student’s capstone turns into Rose Bowl-inspired dress
Eskenazi School student Zilly Then transformed thrifted IU athletic gear into a Rose Bowl look that garnered over 10,000 likes on IU Bloomington’s Instagram page and attracted local news attention. Discover the origins of this viral look and get to know its maker in this Indiana Daily Student article.
Eskenazi School and Museum community mourn the passing of Lois Eskenazi
The Indiana Daily Student marked the passing of Lois Eskenazi, whose philanthropy benefited the Eskenazi School and the Eskenazi Museum of Art. The Eskenazis' 2019 donation to what was then the School of Art and Design supported the construction of the Mies van der Rohe Building, scholarships, fellowships, research funding, and more.
Eskenazi School mourns passing of Lois Eskenazi
Lois Eskenazi, benefactor of the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, passed away January 4, 2026. Artist and IU alum, Mrs. Eskenazi, with her husband Sidney, found joy in their many philanthropic endeavors which also included the Eskenazi Hospital and Health Foundation in Indianapolis and IU's Eskenazi Museum of Art.
Continuum: Eskenazi Faculty Exhibition 2026 to showcase more than 50 IU artists
Saluting the Eskenazi School’s first decade, the Grunwald Gallery mounts "Continuum" January 16. The exhibition brings together artwork by over 50 faculty artists and spans media across disciplines representing the scope of instruction at the school--from fashion design to architecture, interior design, and diverse areas of studio art.
