Arts & Humanities

A sculpture of a crocodile eatings its tail made in filament and resin.

Arts & Humanities

Two 2025 project grants and a fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

WXPN and the Institute for Contemporary Art each received creative project grants and filmmaker Sosena Solomon, who teaches in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, was named a 2025 Pew Fellow.

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People visiting Penn’s new Native North American Gallery at the Penn Museum.

Arts & Humanities

Native North America Gallery opens at the Penn Museum

In partnership with eight Indigenous consulting curators, the newly renovated 2,000 sq. ft. gallery features more than 250 archaeological, historic, and contemporary items from the Museum’s North American collections.

3 min. read

two artists laughing with each other standing in gallery in front of wooden balusters on wall

‘Ritual and Remembrance’

Work by four artists in the current Arthur Ross Gallery exhibition, “Songs for Ritual and Remembrance,” uplift histories that have been repressed and underrepresented, including those of enslaved people and oppressed laborers.

students standing on a hill of seashells

In MATTERS course, art materials are traced to their source

Through an innovative new course in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, students explore the life cycles of the materials frequently used in art and design—from paints to potting soil.

Will Atkins, Vicky Aquino, and students affix flower stickers to the new AAPI mural

A new ARCH building mural celebrates beauty and difference

A new mural in the ARCH building lobby represents and celebrates the diversity of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

A rare rediscovery revealed

An oil painting by 19th-century French artist Gustave Courbet that was found in the School of Dental Medicine’s storage is now on view at the Arthur Ross Gallery.

Musicians from the Black Opry Revue performing on a porch

ICA, WXPN awarded Pew Center for Arts & Heritage project grants

The Institute of Contemporary Art and WXPN have been awarded 2022 project grants from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Stuart Weitzman School of Design alumni James Maurelle, now on the faculty, and James Allister Sprang are among 12 Pew Fellows in the Arts named this year.

An old and large book upside down on a table, being held by two sets of hands, one gloved, the other not. There are boxes and other materials all around.

Keepers of the cultural memory

In wartime, saving human lives is a top priority. But secondary considerations often include preserving the cultural heritage also under siege. Penn experts offer their thoughts as the situation in Ukraine continues to unfold.

The now-faded walls of a medieval structure, reimagined in digital form

History of Art’s Ivan Drpić is working with sophomore Logan Cho to create 3D renderings of what once-gilded paintings on the walls of a medieval church in Serbia would have looked like.

The philosophy of visual studies

Founded 20 years ago, the interdisciplinary major of visual studies creates a bridge for students to combine interests, including philosophy, art history, architecture, fine arts, and psychology.

People in masks talk about an exercise in listening

Learning to listen in troubled times

The SNF Paideia Program and partners featured Ernesto Pujol and Aaron Levy, an artist and an interdisciplinary scholar who have transformed both what it means to listen and what the act of listening can achieve as part of a lecture and workshops.

15th century illustration of a person atop a stone tower overseeing a landscape.

The Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image celebrates 25 years

The Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image has spent the past 25 years digitizing collections from the Penn Libraries, partnering cultural institutions, and private collections.