Lanina Uses Foundry Time to Tell Herstory

Early in November, the Foundry makerspace at the Fine Arts Library welcomed its second artist-in-residence, Russian-born American multimedia artist Yuliya Lanina.

Lanina’s deeply personal work spans the universe of media — painting, sculpture, video, animatronics, performance — and resides in a space where whimsical imagery dances in a veil of melancholic undercurrents like children’s tales if viewed a lens of Heironymous Bosch.

Components of Lanina's "Herstory".
Components of Lanina’s “Herstory”.

Lanina spent the better part of her time at the Foundry working on a collection of animatronic projects, from doll to human-size in stature, that are intended to interact with the viewer, with sensors that activate motion and audio when a viewer is in proximity.

Lanina focused most of her time in the Foundry on one project — “Herstory” — a human-sized animatronic doll with a face cast (3D printed) from the artist’s own, which intends to explore gender and cultural identity through the sharing of awkward anecdotes and stories that challenge the way that gender is perceived. Lanina presented a public talk focused on the project, but covering her other works, as well, as part of the residency.

Yuliya Lanina presents a public talk at the Fine Arts Library.
Yuliya Lanina presents a public talk at the Fine Arts Library.

Lanina’s art has been exhibited in such museums and institutions as the Seoul Art Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Museum (Cologne), the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Galapagos Art Center in Brooklyn. She’s received honors that include fellowships and scholarships from Headlands Art Center (California), Yadoo (New York), CORE Cultural Funding Program (Austin, TX), BluePrint/COJECO (New York City), TEMPO (TX) and an honorable citation from New York State Assembly.

She holds MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College, CUNY, New York and a BFA in Painting and Drawing from Purchase College, SUNY.

Another of Lanina's animatronic projects in the Foundry.
Another of Lanina’s animatronic projects in the Foundry.

Funded by donor Kirby Attwell and COFA, the artist-in-resident series brings notable multi-media artists to Austin for a week at a time for workshops with students, lectures for the public and a chance to pursue their own art on the advanced equipment in the Foundry. The previous artist-in-residence at the Foundry was Israeli American contemporary media artist Yael Kanarek.

Read more about Yuliya Lanina at the fantastic new Austin arts magazine Sightlines recently launched by veteran area arts writer Jeanne Claire van Ryzin.

 

 

 

Social Sciences Team Brings Graduate Research to PCL

On November 3rd, the Libraries’ Social Sciences Team conducted its first Graduate Research Showcase, which featured twenty posters with a wide array of topics ranging from the economic impacts of state immigration reform to the role of paternal warmth and maternal stress in child-rearing to sport as part of Great Britain’s colonial enterprise in India. In total, the twenty graduate students came from fifteen different departments across campus, sparking interdisciplinary dialogue, collaboration, and scholarly engagement.

Janice Hernandez from the School of Nursing demonstrates the effects that caregiving for loved ones has on employees at their work.
Janice Hernandez from the School of Nursing demonstrates the effects that caregiving for loved ones has on employees at their work.

The showcase elevated the library as a platform. It provided an opportunity for the students to explain their research in a low-stress environment replete with refreshments as they received constructive criticism on their work. Students welcomed the idea to practice talking about their research. Katie Bradford, a doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies noted that “the event was a great opportunity to receive feedback. I was able to take notes and came away with ways to further develop my project.” Similarly, Department of Curriculum & Instruction doctoral student Hye Ryung Won appreciated the cross-department possibilities:  “I got a lot of feedback from people and could make some connections with peers from other departments.” The enthusiasm found in these statements resonated throughout the day.

STEM Education student Nathan Cho considers cultural influences on American and Korean college students.
STEM Education student Nathan Cho considers cultural influences on American and Korean college students.

Moreover, one lucky student won the vote for best poster: Briana Barber, a doctoral student in the Department of Radio-Television-Film put forth stimulating research on African American voices in podcasts. Titled, “‘The Conversations that Black People Have When White People Aren’t in the Room’: The Podcast as Public Sphere,” the presentation focused on how African Americans continue to carve out spaces in a medium previously dominated by white voices. The best poster contest may have been just for fun, but it had a real impact on Barber, who remarked that “winning the poster competition was just the motivation I needed to know that the work I’m doing is interesting, important and necessary.”

Contest winner Briana Weber presents her research to a group of intrigued listeners.
Contest winner Briana Weber presents her research to a group of intrigued listeners.

The Social Sciences Team organized the event at the Perry-Castañeda Library’s Scholars Commons, a newly designed space for UTL to foster research initiatives and exhibit space. By all accounts, the Showcase represented a successful shift in the Library’s involvement with research: it attracted over 100 students, staff, and community members while students have called for another poster session to be held the following semester. Indeed, Assistant Director of Digital Scholarship Jenifer Flaxbart commented that “the Scholars Commons has never buzzed and hummed with the cadence of so many voices discussing interesting, broad-ranging research as it did today.” Stay tuned for future events!

 

 

 

 

Three stories you made happen at UT Libraries

The following post is part of UT Thanks Day. UT Thanks Day is an extraordinary time every year when our UT community comes together as one to thank donors. We are inspired and better-off through your generosity. Here are three stories you made happen.

You helped offset Sana’s tuition.

Nilsson Scholarship recipient Sana Saboowala in the PCL Maps collection
Nilsson Scholarship recipient Sana Saboowala in the PCL Maps collection

Sana Saboowala is pursuing a B.S.A. in Biology and a B.A. in Anthropology and is in the Polymathic Scholars and Liberal Arts Honors Program. She is also our student government documents and maps assistant in the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) and the recipient of the Nilsson scholarship for library student workers.

Thank you for helping offset tuition for Sana while we helped train her for the workforce. In her role, Sana safeguards and preserves official publications and information products of the U.S. Government in all formats. She protects materials vulnerable to decay, technical obsolescence, malicious cyber-attacks, and neglect.

Sana was overwhelmed by the daunting projects we put in front of her as a freshman four years ago but she overcame. Now a senior, we trust Sana to determine what is valuable to keep and what can be discarded before the digitization process.

Sana speaks in front of representatives from the Government Printing Office during audits—essentially officials evaluating the libraries and her work. A skill she was grateful to learn now having to present her own work at academic conferences. Sana stuck it out, excelled, and is now grateful for the lessons in leadership, self-initiative, self-confidence, and diverse array of skills she accumulated.

Her work experience at PCL helped her conduct independent research as a Mellon Mays Fellow, winning a highly competitive internship at the Harry Ransom Center, and writing an honors thesis.

You supported Sean and his 3D printed violin.

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Sean Riley with his 3D printed violin

Doctoral candidate Sean Riley needed a six-string electric violin to play American composer John Adams’s “The Dharma at Big Sur.” Six string violins are uncommon, so he went to The Foundry in the Fine Arts Library to make one. To complete the violin, Riley needed to collaborate. He enlisted Rebecca Milton, an undergraduate student in studio art, and Daniel Goodwin, a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, and they began working in The Foundry.

The story of Sean creating his six string violin in The Foundry will be highlighted in January on UT’s homepage. Be on the lookout to learn how he landed on his final violin design, to include designing it to not melt in the car.

You helped jump-start opening the Genaro García collection to the world.

UTLEmail-3
Christina Bleyer, Head of Special Collections and Senior Archivist at the Benson Latin American Collection

The Benson Latin American collection is arguably the best library devoted to the region of Latin America in the world. The Genaro García collection within the Benson was our first major purchase of treasures from Mexico. It has been attracting world-renowned faculty and recruiting the brightest students to UT since 1921—for almost 100 years. Researchers from every corner of the world come to sift through documents to shed light on Mexico’s history, it’s evolution from a colonial territory of Spain to a modern independent nation.

You helped purchase supplies and employ the student labor needed to digitize this collection. This material has been accessible only in person since 1921—until now. Thanks to you, the Genaro García collection can be viewed by everyone, from the casual observer emerging themselves in Mexican history to the distinguished researcher on the opposite side of the world. Thank you for allowing us to share this rare collection with the world.

A New Arrival (It’s a Website!)

The Libraries have just released a new website, marking the first significant upgrade of the web portal in well over a decade.

The redesign is long overdue and represents a first attempt to comprehensively evaluate the site’s historical content, some of which is residual from early adoption of the internet by the General Libraries in the mid-late 1990s.

The website refresh has been under consideration for some time, but was urged along when the Senate of Student Councils made a detailed formal request for site improvements in January, 2016. Production of the new site began in February of this year, and was managed through an iterative, evolutionary project development process called Agile.

What’s new and improved:

  • Responsive design – the new site adjusts to the screen size of the user’s device.
  • Efficient browsing and search – clearer language for navigation, and a house-cleaning that cuts down on the bloat of a 6,000+ page site will make use of the site more efficient.
  • Homepage refresh – aligns with campus-wide standards to create consistency of user experience across the university web platform.
  • Updated location pages – consistency across the dedicated pages for branch locations will increase the ease of use while also allowing for customization of services and resources.
  • Expanded equipment pages – more information about creativity and productivity tools on hand for checkout or use onsite, with specs, access and availability information.
  • New “space” pages — specialized study, creativity and productivity spaces throughout the Libraries are now discoverable and browseable with information on capacity and availability.
  • Improved “Hours” interface – up-to-date information on location and service hours available in multiple locations to make planning a visit easier.
  • Sustainability – streamlined production process will result in constant improvements to the website based on user behavior and feedback.
  • Task-orientation – the new architecture focuses on helping users get work done more efficiently by increasing the integration of services, resources, spaces and expertise.

The new website will be available in parallel to the legacy site through the remainder of the fall semester, accessible via a pop-up at lib.utexas.edu, followed by a full launch with expanded features — including “unified search” — in early January.

Explore the new site and send us your feedback.

NOTE: On January 4th, 2018, the URL for the Libraries new website will change to www.lib.utexas.edu and contents of the existing site will be moved to legacy.lib.utexas.edu. Users will be able to reach pages from the old site with outdated links by changing “www” in the target URL “legacy.” This change will likely have some effects for online users and there are plans to frequently communicate about any changes that may impact user experience.