Stephen Vitiello

VCUarts Qatar graphic design chair and (IN)>Tangible Lab director Astrid Kensinger describes how art and design can make cultural heritage tangible and shares the remarkable story of two students who unexpectedly discovered their own ancestors in a 1959 ethnographic expedition, retraced their journeys and shared the experience with the world.---About Astrid KensingerAstrid Kensinger is an Associate Professor and Chair of Graphic Design at VCUarts Qatar, where she also serves as Principal Investigator of the VCUarts Qatar Institute for Creative Research (IN)>Tangible Lab. Her transdisciplinary practice and research explore information visualization, cartographic performance and visual communication as tools for engaging with place, cultural memory and contemporary social and environmental issues.Kensinger’s work brings together design, mapping, performance, archaeology and intangible cultural heritage, while also engaging community knowledge and cultural institutions as active forms of research. She investigates how site-specific narratives and participatory forms of making can reveal relationships between people, place, memory and cultural knowledge. Through (IN)>Tangible Lab, she works with students, alumni, cultural institutions and community partners across Qatar and internationally, developing projects that connect creative research with public engagement and cultural heritage.Her current research includes Mapping Migration Memories, exploring Qatari desert-to-sea migration histories through mapping, sound, and participatory storytelling, and In Search of the Desert Truffle, a transdisciplinary investigation of ecological knowledge, foodways, language and intangible cultural heritage surrounding Qatar’s seasonal desert truffles.Kensinger holds an undergraduate degree in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology and an M.F.A. focused on designed experiences and the archaeology of festivity. Her international practice and collaborations span Japan, Singapore, Australia, China, Europe and Qatar. She is particularly interested in design as a mode of research and as a means of making complex cultural knowledge visible, experiential and accessible.---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Communication Arts professors Jason Bennett & Sterling Hundley describe the punk-rock origins of the applied arts lab and how “creative investigators” unleash the full power of arts research. ---About Jason BennettJason Bennett (b. 1981) is a game artist, animator, and illustrator. His work has appeared in international projects including Bioshock Infinite (multiple SKUs), Shadow of the Colossus (PS4), Madden NFL (series, multiple SKUs), Settlers of Catan (VR), and more. His clients have included Sony, Electronic Arts, Insomniac Games, Ubisoft, 2K Games, Major League Baseball, Wizards of the Coast, Def Jam Recordings, Smosh, Kabam and NASA. Genres include first-person shooters, sports, racing, strategy, stealth, platformer, puzzle, VR tabletop and pen & paper roleplaying games. Bennett earned his B.F.A. from Ringling College of Design, majoring in Computer Animation, and has studied illustration and classical figurative art throughout the East Coast, including the School of Visual Arts, the Art Students League and Grand Central Atelier. He now enjoys living in Richmond, exploring VA’s trails and waterways, observational painting, game dev and teaching with the VCUarts Department of Communication Arts (2016-present). About Sterling HundleyFrom rockets to rockstars, Sterling Hundley has collaborated with clients from NASA to Rolling Stone; video games to the Grammys to design pictures that speak louder than words. As an illustrator, Professor in Communication Arts at VCU, TEDx Speaker, Founder of Legendeer and Co-Founder of the Applied Arts Lab, Sterling works with an array of clients to unpack the magic of creativity into a framework of logic. ---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Professor of Photography and Film Sasha Waters describes the story behind the documentary Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, and what it felt like to make Stephen Colbert cry.---About Sasha WatersSasha Waters has produced and directed nearly two dozen documentary, experimental, and short essay films, many of which originate in 16mm.  Most recently, she is the producer, director and co-editor of Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, a feature-length portrait of the beloved American poet. Mary Oliver had its World Premiere on Opening Night at the 2026 True/False Film Festival and was released in more than fifty theaters by Kino Lorber in advance of its premiere on the national PBS series American Masters. The Boston Globe described it as a “documentary about a great poet that feels like a great poem.” Previously, Sasha’s research into the archives of photographer Garry Winogrand led to a feature documentary that challenged and changed the art historical understanding of his legacy. Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable was called one of the year’s best by The New Yorker and won a Special Jury Prize at the SXSW Film Festival. Winogrand screened theatrically around the world and inspired Garry Winogrand Archive 1948-1984, her forthcoming book in collaboration with photographer Jeffrey Ladd and Artbook l D.A.P.  Sasha has had solo retrospectives of her short, 16mm experimental films at Fisura Festival of Experimental Film, CDMX; the Library of Congress; The Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, and Microscope Gallery in NYC, as well as screenings at Kassel Dokfest, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin; IFF Rotterdam, the Telluride Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives; Pacific Film Archive; the Brooklyn Museum; Union Docs; the Speed Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Gene Siskel Film Center, among other international venues. She has received support from the Catapult Film Fund, Field of Vision, the NEA, the NEH, and the Jerome Foundation, and has been a Fellow in residence at MacDowell, Yaddo, Millay Arts, the Film / Video Studio at the Wexner Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Architect and interior design educator Laura Battaglia and former student Eiman Rasheed discuss an ongoing memorialization project and how empathic design centers the human experience in interior spaces.---About Laura BattagliaLaura Battaglia is an architect, educator and researcher whose work advances a collaborative, community-centered vision of design—one in which scholarship emerges as an ecosystem connecting communities, students and their physical environments. Her interdisciplinary research examines how empathic and community-engaged design can foster reconciliation, preserve public memory and generate social impact; how collaboration across architecture, design, engineering and public policy can advance sustainable and equitable housing; and how design education can serve as scholarship through research, competition, mentorship and public engagement. An Assistant Professor of Interior Design in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, she previously taught at Hampton University, North Carolina State University and the Art Institute of Virginia Beach.A defining dimension of Battaglia’s work is expanding access to design education. At Hampton University, she founded and directed ARCHICAMP, introducing middle school students of color to architecture and creating pathways into the profession. As founder of Studio|Battaglia and HouseLAB, she connects scholarship, professional practice, teaching and civic engagement. A VCU NIRA scholar and board member of Historic Richmond, Battaglia advances design education as a vehicle for critical thinking, cultural understanding, inclusion and more equitable futures.About Eiman RasheedEiman Rasheed is an interior designer whose work explores how empathy, community engagement and human experience can inform the design of meaningful environments. Her approach considers how material, light and spatial experience can shape the ways people gather, connect and develop a sense of belonging. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Interior Design, her academic work examined the role of design in supporting community, equity, sustainability and shared experience.While at VCU, Rasheed contributed to St. Mark’s Grove in Sewanee, Tennessee, a cross-disciplinary project centered on remembrance, reconciliation and community engagement. She also served as a research assistant examining empathic design pedagogy and community-engaged design. As part of VCU’s 2024 Solar Decathlon team, she contributed to the Reimagined Rowhouse, a housing proposal exploring sustainability, accessibility and equity in Richmond.Rasheed currently works as an interior designer at Hickok Cole in Richmond, Virginia, where she continues to develop a design practice grounded in empathy, curiosity and the creation of environments that support connection, exploration and belonging.---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Award-winning sound artist Stephen Vitiello discusses the magic of discovering, shaping and sharing soundscapes in art installations, LPs, film, firmament and even through the architecture of the World Trade Center.This episode also features musician, composer and sound artist Steve Ashby.---About Stephen VitielloStephen Vitiello is a professor in the department of Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is known internationally as an electronic musician and media artist. Vitiello’s multi-channel sound works and videos are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon.  CD and LP releases have been published by numerous labels, including New Albion, Sub Rosa, 12k, Balmat and Room 40. Over the last 30 years, Vitiello has collaborated with such artists and musicians as Pauline Oliveros, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Taylor Deupree, Joan Jonas, Tony Oursler, Steve Roden, Brendan Canty (from the group Fugazi), Scanner and Julie Mehretu. Vitiello has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for “Fine Arts,” a Creative Capital grant for “Emerging Fields” and an Alpert/Ucross Award for Music. Originally from New York, Vitiello is now based in Richmond, VA.About Steve AshbySteve Ashby is a musician, composer, and sound artist based in the UnitedStates. Ashby work focuses on sound found in the natural and digital world todiscover places of intersection which engage in the art of listening. Recentperformances and residencies include the International Symposium ofElectronic Art, Australasian Computer Music Conference, InternationalComputer Music Conference 2022, the Society of Electro-Acoustic Musicians inthe United States, Soundpedro, Moxsonic, EMS Stockholm Guest ComposerSeries, Radiophrenia Scotland, Cube Fest at Virginia Tech, New MusicGathering, Sound Arts Richmond, and the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival.---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Composer and producer Filipe Leitão describes the art of composing music for cinema and explains that what a director says they want is not always what they really want.---About Filipe LeitãoFilipe Leitão, D.M.A., is an award-winning composer, music producer and educator. He is Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he developed and leads the Media Scoring program. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at The University of Alabama, a Master of Fine Arts degree in Music Production and Sound Design for Visual Media at the Academy of Art University (San Francisco, CA) and a Bachelor in Art Education in Brazil, where he served as an Assistant Professor at the Federal University of Pará. As an educator, he has taught composition, orchestration, music production and film scoring. Leitão has collaborated with many artists, creating original compositions and sound design for films and video games, and has written concert pieces for varied ensembles. His works reflect his unique voice, originating from a mix of classical, popular, Brazilian and film music, and have been recognized at both national and international levels. His works has earned prizes and performances on renowned film and music festivals, including New York Electroacoustic Music Festival, Electronic Music Midwest, University of Tennessee Contemporary Music Festival, SCI Conferences, Belgian Saxophone Choir, North American Saxophone Alliance Conference, Cannes Short Film Corner, Toronto Film Week, Anima Mundi and WorldFest Houston.​In addition to his work as a composer and educator, Leitão also develops professional virtual instruments and digital tools for composers and producers, combining musical creativity with cutting-edge sound design to empower artists worldwide.---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Roberto Jamora describes the magic of color, the importance of seeing in critical thinking and the legacy of first generation immigrants in the arts.This episode also features Michelle Yee, assistant professor of Art History at VCUarts.---About Roberto JamoraRoberto Jamora is a Richmond-based artist and educator. He holds an M.F.A. from the State University of New York at Purchase and a B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts. He is an Assistant Professor in the VCUarts Art Foundation Program.In Jamora’s series "An Inventory of Traces," color operates as both material and metaphor: gradients become repositories for memory, while layered surfaces suggest accumulation, erasure and return. He mines color from memory, photos, interviews and artifacts from his family. Skin tones, a day at the beach, hiking up a mystical mountain in the Philippines, a sonogram, aging postcards from his uncle to his grandparents from the 1970s, the bayous in Louisiana where Filipinos used to hide, the shapes of rivers, an ordinary day in Virginia. Each gradient and incision are both spectacular and everyday, familiar and distant. Through slow, attentive processes of application and concealment, thin traces of color are revealed. The paintings are quiet provocations, asking the viewer to reflect on the meanings and power of color.His practice is grounded in an ongoing inquiry into color, memory and perception, approached through abstraction as a means of holding experiences that resist literal representation. He makes this work to better understand how lived moments—personal, cultural and historical—leave traces that persist beyond narrative clarity.His artwork has been exhibited at the Anderson at VCU, Cody Gallery at Marymount University, Virginia MOCA, Frost Art Museum, Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans, SFA Projects, Antenna, FLXST Contemporary, Page Bond Gallery, ADA Gallery, Topaz Arts, Norte Maar, Open Space, Outlet Fine Art, and Ishmael Bernal Gallery.He is represented by Bond Millen Gallery in Richmond. His artwork is in collections including the Atlanta Hawks NBA Team, Capital One, CoStar Group, Harvard Kennedy School, Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary, and several private collections.About Michelle YeeMichelle Yee, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Art History at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research focuses on contemporary Asian American and Asian Diasporic art including issues of race and representation, transnational connections and collisions, and cosmopolitanisms. She serves as organizer and chair of the Diasporic Asian Art Network, an affiliate society of the College Art Association. Her writing can be found in journals such as Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, Art Journal, Third Text, Panorama and Art Etc., as well as several exhibition catalogues. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Studies from the University of California - Santa Cruz, an M.A. in Art History from the University of Connecticut and a B.A. in Art History and English Literature from Georgetown University. ---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

Dancer E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D., describes the challenges and triumphs of creating the sonic landscape for 350,000, an immersive film installation featured in the exhibition Dawoud Bey: Elegy.This episode also features Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.---About E. Gaynell SherrodDance educator, choreographer and historian E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D., danced professionally with the Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO!) and Urban Bush Women, Inc. She earned a master’s degree in dance education and a doctorate in dance pedagogy and performance from Temple University.A Fulbright-Hayes scholar in dance research, Sherrod's artistic and theoretical works are steeped in African American vernacular and African Diasporan dance and rhythms, mentored by acclaimed scholars Dr. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, and the late Drs. Kariamu Welsh and Katie G. Cannon. She was previously the Director of Dance Education for New York City public schools, where she implemented professional training initiatives for dance educators, teaching artists and classroom teachers. She co-founded and directed the New York City Department of Education Dance Institute: Based on the Katherine Dunham Model, for which she was awarded a DANA Foundation Grant. Sherrod taught at New Jersey City University, New York University and Florida A&M University, where she earned tenure. In 2014, Sherrod joined the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as Chair of the Department of Dance + Choreography. From 2019-2020, she served as the Interim Executive Director of PHILDANCO! on an organizational sustainability position funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.  She is currently professor of dance at VCU—teaching, writing, choreographing, creating work mixed media and a consultant for dance organizations. Her work TWINE! (2017; 2022), earned her a Sage and John Cowles Residency at University of Minnesota Dance. In 2022, Sherrod collaborated with acclaimed photographer Dawoud Bey on his film 350,000, for which she created the choreo-sonic score. The project—Dawoud Bey: Elegy—was commissioned by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and exhibited from November 2023 to February 2024. More recently, it was on view at the Sean Kelly Gallery (New York City) and at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Sherrod is the author of Katherine Dunham and The Dance Griots: Reading the Invisible Script (Mellen Press, 2022). About Valerie Cassel OliverValerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Since her debut at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, she has organized several critically acclaimed exhibitions including the retrospective entitled Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen co organized with Naomi Beckwith (2018); The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse (2021) that toured nationally. And most recently, Dawoud Bey: Elegy (2023) which also toured.Cassl Oliver has lectured extensively and is a widely published author on contemporary art, artist and art practices. Cassel Oliver holds an Executive M.B.A. from Columbia University, New York; an M.A. in Art History from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and, a B.S. in Communications from the University of Texas at Austin.---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

VCUarts Qatar-based international architects and interior designers Simone Carena and Marco Bruno explain the creative power of fresh starts and misunderstandings, the meaning of dub design and why arts research is like riding a motorcycle.---About Simone Carena & Marco BrunoMOTOElastico co-founders and VCUarts Qatar faculty members Simone Carena and Marco Bruno chat about their Dub-inspired design process. MOTOElastico is an orbiting Space Lab founded in Seoul by Simone Carena and Marco Bruno and currently working on architecture, interiors, exhibition and art projects. Born and educated in Italy, specialized in California, rooted in South Korea since 2001, and now teaching and practicing in Doha, MOTOElastico in all its projects is using irony to critically challenge and playfully celebrate local customs and behaviors. In more than twenty years of practice outside of its Italian homeland, MOTOElastico developed a wide range of space projects. The goal was often to explore local cultures through the unexpected combination of original ingredients with a design process similar to the one used by Dub DJs: enhancing rhythms and underlying features of existing elements, with the purpose of generating new yet familiar design tunes.MOTOElastico works have received several design awards and been included in prestigious international venues and events: Anyang Public Art Project (South Korea), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul (South Korea), Italian Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale (Italy), Korean Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (Italy/South Korea, Golden Lion), Marrakech Art Biennale (Morocco), Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (South Korea), Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism of Shenzen (China), Gwangju Design Biennale (South Korea) the Doha Design Biennial (Qatar) and London Design Biennial (UK).For more information, visit www.motoelastico.com---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.

John Freyer explains how he came to make art that creates space for people to slow down and have honest conversations with each other.This episode also features artist, curator and educator Sarah Irvin, curator of student exhibitions and programs at the Anderson, VCUarts' premier on-campus exhibition space.---About John FreyerJohn Freyer is an associate professor of cross-disciplinary media at VCUarts. Freyer is a Peer Recovery Support Specialist and a founding member of the Inclusive Recovery City initiative in Richmond, Va. His projects include the Free Narcan Bike, All My Life for Sale, Free Ice Water, Free Hot Coffee and Free Hot Supper. Freyer is a Fulbright Scholar, a MacDowell Fellow and an artist-in-residence at Light Work & the Fannon Center, Doha. Freyer has brought his social practice projects to the TEDx stage, Mixed Greens Gallery in New York, the Liverpool Biennial Fringe and was a 2018 Tate Exchange Associate at Tate Modern. Freyer founded the traveling symposium Recovery in Practice at Columbia University in the Fall of 2023. Recovery In Practice has since been hosted at University of Derby, Teesside University in the UK in 2024, Virginia Commonwealth University and at the Portland Alano Club in 2025.About Sarah IrvinSarah Irvin is an artist, curator and educator. She earned a Master of Fine of Arts from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Georgia. Irvin has been featured in more than twenty solo shows, as well as more than eighty group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She is the founder of the Artist Parent Index, a searchable database of artists making work about their experience with reproduction and caring for their children. She is the Curator of Student Exhibitions and Programs at the Anderson and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses for VCUarts. Irvin is represented by Bond Millen Gallery, Richmond; Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York; and Massey Klein Gallery, New York.---VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Leitão. For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.