News Release

The Johns Hopkins University has awarded approximately $25,000 in grants to students and faculty to stimulate new courses in the arts and other arts-related efforts on the university's Homewood campus, said Winston Tabb, the university's vice provost for the arts.

Initiated in 2006, the Arts Innovation Program offers funding to faculty to create new courses in the arts for undergraduates, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and cross-divisional courses. The program also supports the artistic efforts of students, both those currently engaged in arts activities and those wishing to create a new venture, with an emphasis on making connections between Johns Hopkins students and the Baltimore community.

Two new fall courses will benefit from the funding. In "Camera Arts: Photographing Evergreen Museum & Library," taught by Phyllis Berger of the Homewood Arts Workshops and Evergreen curator James Archer Abbott, students will learn the basics of digital photography and Photoshop and the history of the photography movement through the creation of a photographic series inspired by aspects of the museum's history, architecture and collections. The course will culminate in an exhibition of the students' work.

"Arts, Hypermedia, Community: Creating an Online Multi- media Arts Journal for Baltimore and Beyond," sponsored by the Film and Media Studies Program with support from faculty and staff of Johns Hopkins and the Maryland Institute College of Art, will offer students an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate with Baltimore community artists and activists to help produce content for Radar Redux, a new online journal of arts and culture.

A third course, "Close Looking at the BMA: Van Dyck's 'Rinaldo and Armida,'" taught by Museums and Society Program director Elizabeth Rodini in collaboration with Baltimore Museum of Art staff and Johns Hopkins faculty, will be offered in spring 2009. Through in-depth study of a significant work of art, consisting of both traditional and innovative methods, students will generate a new, interpretive program directed at the museum's broad audience.

Additionally, three student-proposed arts initiatives will receive support. The Student Art League led by senior Corey Sattler will receive funding to support a Spring Fair Art Show, which will showcase student works of art during Spring Fair 2008, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 25 through 27.

Senior Liz Eldridge, a Writing Seminars major and theatre arts and studies minor, will produce four short plays as a celebration of the work of poet Russell Edson in July 2008. One of the plays, "A Performance at Hog Theatre," was adapted for the stage by Eldridge herself.

Freshmen Neil Albstein and Jeremy Garson will produce a comedy film series, with films highlighting either a particular era in comic film history, or the work of a noteworthy filmmaker. The series will take place in the Merrick Barn during the fall 2008 semester.