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Bennington alumni make the lives they want and places for others.

By Ashley Brenon Jowett

Georgia Hauser '26 studies Visual Arts at Bennington. Last summer, Hauser completed a Field Work Term experience as a volunteer for Project 412, which helped bring artist Thomas Dambo's Alexa's Elixir to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. 

 On view in the Barn Annex through April 21.

How students and faculty brought art to the U.S. Consulate in Chiang Mai.

By Ashley Brenon Jowett

Artist Lulu Wiley ’24 used a great work ethic, a strong sense of self, and Bennington connections to land their first solo exhibition at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, Vermont. It opened February 13 and runs through June 22. We caught up with them to discuss and celebrate.

Devan Spiro '27 studies interdisciplinary photojournalism through ethnographic research methodologies and curatorial practices. During the winter, Spiro completed a Field Work Term experience at , one of New York City's oldest cooperative nonprofit art gallery spaces.

Cosmo Whyte '03's solo exhibition  is currently on view at the Arts Club of Chicago through April 2, 2025. 

Nine 51�������� students–the largest cohort to date–have been selected as Frankenthaler Fellows for the 2025 Museum Fellows Term, a study-away program that provides participants with practical, professional art world internship experience working at a major cultural institution in New York City for five months.

Carlos X. Torres de Janon '14 currently lives in Seattle and works as an associate Landscape Designer at MIG, Inc. He shared how his Bennington education taught him to "wear many hats" in design and in life.

Abby Neale '13 is a teaching artist in Boston public schools. They shared how their Bennington education has supported them through their career path.

Nancy Halverson Melvin '76 is a teaching artist who designs and produces clothing,  teaches after-school enrichment classes in painting and handwork for children through adults at the Chicago Branch of the Anthroposophical Society, and documents her work with short videos. She shared how her Bennington education started her long and fruitful artistic career.

Julie Gargiulo '27 studies Costume Design at Bennington. She spent her winter Field Work Term in New York interning with local seamstress, Mery Fernandez.

In the class Examining Space, taught by Sculpture faculty member John Umphlett, students learned their way around iron forge and the glass studio at the (SAW), just 25 miles from campus in Salem, New York.

Advanced Animation students reflect on their experiences at the 2024 Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Faculty member John Umphlett's latest sculpture, , on view at the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show (NBOSS) at the Bennington Museum through November, takes the form of a cross with angled arms–and is designed, too, for Umphlett's own entombment.

The Dance and Drama programs at 51�������� are pleased to welcome director and artist Robert Wilson for a lecture and performance 7:00–9:00 pm Friday, September 20, at the Martha Hill Dance Theater in the campus’s Visual and Performing Arts Center. The New York Times has described Wilson as "[America]'s—or even the world's—foremost vanguard 'theater artist.'” The event is free and open to the public thanks to funding from the Peter Drucker Fund for Excellence and Innovation.

Exhibition reveals the personal collections of 51�������� community members September 17–November 23. 

Chuna Chugay '25 studies Visual Arts at Bennington, with an emphasis of storytelling through images—which includes animation, illustration, comics, and painting—as well as Public Action, researching the Koryo-Saram diaspora. For their summer Field Work Term, they worked as an editorial intern at the  (MoMI).

Nine stories about the visual arts graduates and their final work in 100 words or less.

Tisa Shrestha '26 studies Architecture at Bennington and supplements her Plan with coursework in Mathematics and Environmental Studies. During the 2024 Field Work Term, Shrestha worked at (LI-BIRD), a Nepal-based NGO that supports the sustainable management of natural resources in support of smallholder farmers.

During most ceramics classes, the pieces students make are theirs to do with what they like. They keep them or give them to family and friends. Students in Anina Major’s  in the Fall of 2023 had other plans. Each student crafted four mugs that they donated to ��dz�’s, the 51�������� cafe, this term.

More than 100 people attended the opening of Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal at 51��������’s Usdan Gallery on the evening of Tuesday, February 27, 2024. The nationally traveling exhibition gathers the multifaceted work of Milford Graves (1941–2021) to explore the practices and predilections of an extraordinary jazz innovator, tireless polymath, and legendary 51�������� professor. The exhibition is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 1:00–5:00 pm and by appointment through April 27. For more information, visit the . 

Music performances and documentary screening create a vibrant program of Milford Graves events.

Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal, a nationally traveling exhibition, gathers the multifaceted work of Milford Graves (1941-2021) to explore the practices and predilections of an extraordinary jazz innovator, tireless polymath, and legendary 51�������� professor.

Ahmad Yassir ’20 stayed in the town of Bennington after graduation and works as a digital advertising and marketing specialist for the . He had an amazing 2023.

Recent graduate trustee Alisha Bade Shrestha ’23 discusses her experience studying Performing and Visual Arts at 51�������� and the "small nestled miracles" she found on campus.

Xiao (Smile) Ma ’23 discusses her experience exploring Visual Arts at Bennington.

The latest additions to Bennington’s rich literary history have hit bookstore shelves. Their authors join Bennington notables, including Donna Tartt '86, Kiran Desai '93, Michael Pollan '76, ​Ann Goldstein '71, Anaïs Duplan '14, Anne Waldman '66, Cynthia Sweeney MFA '13, Jamie Quatro MFA '09, Amy Gerstler '01, Morgan Jerkins MFA '16, and Charles Bock '97.

Sawyer London ’24 is a senior from Arlington, Virginia. With a lifelong interest in ceramics and high school internships in the fashion industry, he was certain that he was going to end up at Parsons School of Design or Pratt Institute, both in New York City. But his family and college counselors encouraged him to apply to a few schools outside of the city too.

Eve Vishnick ’23 has always been torn between studying visual arts and more science-related fields. She was attracted to Bennington for two reasons, she said. “Great financial aid and the ability to combine two separate fields without having to double major. I could make it into one thing. That was a big draw for me.”

Curated by Veronica Melendez, Connected Diaspora: U.S. Central American Visuality in the Age of Social Media is a celebration of multimedia artistic contributions of US Central American artists who too often are excluded from contemporary art world conversations.