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“What kinds of materials do we have that’s not just paper?”

Amelie Pak, a coterm pursuing her master’s in the Program in Modern Thought and Literature, is the latest student curator with the program. Her exhibit, “Remembering,” highlights objects such as Warmth by Alexa Gross, eight knitted gloves that signify repurposed fabric and lineage, and Gloribel Delgado Esquilín’s tanto sin decir, a collage of the artist’s mother’s old clothes that pieces together old conversations.

Image 1: Amelie introducing the objects in a display case at a reception to celebrate the exhibit’s opening
Image 2: I Used to Sew from Cianne Fragione’s series Pockets Full of Promises (left) and tanto que decir by Gloribel Delgado Esquilín (right) in the “Reconstruction” section of the exhibit.

The exhibit will run through June 4, 2026 at the Bowes Art & Architecture Library, located on the second floor of the McMurtry Building. Please bring a valid student ID to access the library; visitors must register on-site with a valid government ID card.

#stanforduniversity

“What kinds of materials do we have that’s not just paper?”

Amelie Pak, a coterm pursuing her master’s in the Program in Modern Thought and Literature, is the latest student curator with the program. Her exhibit, “Remembering,” highlights objects such as Warmth by Alexa Gross, eight knitted gloves that signify repurposed fabric and lineage, and Gloribel Delgado Esquilín’s tanto sin decir, a collage of the artist’s mother’s old clothes that pieces together old conversations.

Image 1: Amelie introducing the objects in a display case at a reception to celebrate the exhibit’s opening
Image 2: I Used to Sew from Cianne Fragione’s series Pockets Full of Promises (left) and tanto que decir by Gloribel Delgado Esquilín (right) in the “Reconstruction” section of the exhibit.

The exhibit will run through June 4, 2026 at the Bowes Art & Architecture Library, located on the second floor of the McMurtry Building. Please bring a valid student ID to access the library; visitors must register on-site with a valid government ID card.

#stanforduniversity

Tripoli : A Tale of Three Cities | Film Screening & Conversation with Dir. Raed Rafei

🗓️ Tuesday, May 12
🕔 5:00pm-7:00pm PT
📍 Oshman Hall, McMurtry Building
🔗 RSVP via link in bio

While living abroad, a filmmaker returns to Tripoli, Lebanon to confront a hometown that once rejected him as a queer child. With a microphone in hand, he walks around coffee shops, public squares and a park to ask the city’s inhabitants about their cultural and social beliefs and their embrace of new ideas. This contemplative urban symphony paints a picture of a city trapped in a self-spun web, paralyzed by a deep economic crisis, a faltering revolution, and a looming doomsday.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Raed Rafei, moderated by Professor Usha Iyer and Grace Han.

Raed Rafei is a filmmaker, researcher, and multimedia journalist. Rafei directed award-winning documentaries and experimental films. His films have screened at international film festivals and venues like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Doc Lisboa, IDFA, Visions du Réel, and the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

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This event is generously co-sponsored by Stanford Film & Media Studies, Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Faculty Research Network on Arab Futures and Past: Palestine+, Stanford Cinematheque, The Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Queer Student Resources Center, Global Studies in Migration and Diaspora: A Stanford Humanities Center Research Workshop.

#filmandmediastudies #filmscreening #stanfordaah #tripolilebanon

There is a particular drama in the way the Italian imagination has pictured love’s arrival. Dante looks at Beatrice and is starstruck. Petrarch spirals into a labyrinth at the sight of Laura. Tasso’s knights, on encountering Armida, lose not only their composure but their sanity.

In these accounts, love does not grow; it takes. In his recent talk at the National Gallery of Art, Emanuele Lugli, associate professor of art and art history, considers the way early modern Italy lingered in that instant of disorientation—what had already been called “love at first sight”—and explores how it offered a framework for thinking about attraction, emotions, the divine, and the mysterious pull of art itself.

🎥 Watch the full lecture at the link in our bio.

Emanuele Lugli researches and writes about the late medieval and early modern world—its paintings, its trading cities, its clothing. His work moves between history and theory, circling questions of scale, labor, eroticism, and the persistence of old ideas that continue to shape the present in invisible ways. His most recent publications include “Lavinia’s Wondrous Portraits” (2025), a children’s book, and “Measuring the Renaissance: An Introduction” (2023), the final volume in a trilogy on the history of measurement.

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Image 1: Titian, “Bacchus and Ariadne,” 1520–1523, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
Image 2: Emanuele Lugli delivering the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art on March 1, 2026, titled “The Confounding Glance: Meraviglia, Attraction, and the Invention of Love at First Sight”

#italianart #renaissanceart #nationalgalleryofart #arthistory #emanuelelugli

There is a particular drama in the way the Italian imagination has pictured love’s arrival. Dante looks at Beatrice and is starstruck. Petrarch spirals into a labyrinth at the sight of Laura. Tasso’s knights, on encountering Armida, lose not only their composure but their sanity.

In these accounts, love does not grow; it takes. In his recent talk at the National Gallery of Art, Emanuele Lugli, associate professor of art and art history, considers the way early modern Italy lingered in that instant of disorientation—what had already been called “love at first sight”—and explores how it offered a framework for thinking about attraction, emotions, the divine, and the mysterious pull of art itself.

🎥 Watch the full lecture at the link in our bio.

Emanuele Lugli researches and writes about the late medieval and early modern world—its paintings, its trading cities, its clothing. His work moves between history and theory, circling questions of scale, labor, eroticism, and the persistence of old ideas that continue to shape the present in invisible ways. His most recent publications include “Lavinia’s Wondrous Portraits” (2025), a children’s book, and “Measuring the Renaissance: An Introduction” (2023), the final volume in a trilogy on the history of measurement.

—

Image 1: Titian, “Bacchus and Ariadne,” 1520–1523, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
Image 2: Emanuele Lugli delivering the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art on March 1, 2026, titled “The Confounding Glance: Meraviglia, Attraction, and the Invention of Love at First Sight”

#italianart #renaissanceart #nationalgalleryofart #arthistory #emanuelelugli

Come Straight Home 🏠
2026 Senior Undergraduate Exhibition

Coming soon to Coulter Art Gallery! This exhibition will feature works by graduating students majoring in art practice.

Participating artists:
Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch
Grace Flynn
Nova Goode-Williams
Nathaniel Mensah
Zoë Rehnborg
Aileen Rubio
Jude Wolf
Seiji Yang

On View: May 26-June 4, 2026
Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 27, 4-6pm
Coulter Art Gallery, 355 Roth Way
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 12-5pm
Curated by Dana Hemenway
Free & open to the public

#stanfordaah #stanfordarts

Are you a filmmaker interested in applying to our MFA Documentary Film Program?

Join us for an online information session on Monday, May 4, from 12–1:30pm (PT) via Zoom. Learn more about the program, application process, and what it’s like to study documentary film at Stanford. This is a great opportunity to hear directly from faculty, staff, and current students. Registration link is in our bio. 🔗

#stanforddocfilm #stanfordaah #stanfordarts #documentaryfilm

Visit Bowes Art & Architecture Library to see “Remembering,” a student-curated exhibit featuring a selection of contemporary artists’ books from the Art Locked Stacks. 📚 The exhibit is on view through the end of spring quarter, and an opening reception will be held tomorrow at 4pm!

When all that remains is a conduit of and for memory, subject and objecthood become interchangeable, mutually enlivening the other. Conceptualizing memory in five chapters, “Remembering” questions our inclination to document, how remnants invoke, resonance, and erasure. The themes: resistance, repair, record, revival, and reconstruction are presented as valences of remembrance, categorized by method, materiality, and most irresistibly, some alliteration. Featuring items from Bowes Library’s Special Collections, “Remembering” treats archival objects as mediators of consideration, exploring the language of all that is made, preserved, and left behind as it concerns what could be forgotten.

Curated by Amelie Pak | Library hours: Mon-Thurs 9-7pm | Fri 9-5pm | Sun 12-6pm

#stanfordlibraries #stanfordspecialcollections #libraryexhibit

The 2026 Undergraduate Honors Thesis Exhibition “Mindful of You The Sodden Earth” will be closing April 30. Visit Coulter Art Gallery from 12-5pm to see works by honors students Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch and Zoë Rehnborg.

Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch is a Native Hawaiian visual artist from the Island of Hawaiʻi. Her art practice is grounded in a love for her ancestors and ʻohana, who she gets to honor and know more deeply through her work. Through painting, Kea activates family and historical archives to bring her ancestors and the practices that sustained them into space and vibrant color. Her work reflects a personal reclamation of her mo’okūʻauhau (genealogical story) in a settler-colonial context, where knowing and reciting one’s genealogy often requires re-learning — calling out, listening, diving and digging. Painting has enabled this process, allowing an intimate engagement with her own genealogy. As she gathers stories from her grandmother, spends time in the guava fields her grandpa once tended to, paints the hands of her great-grandma she never knew, she reclaims her right to remember while creating space for her familyʻs moʻolelo in historical and visual canons.

Zoë Rehnborg (b. 2003, Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. Informed by her experience working in microbiology labs, her practice explores the ecological and existential dimensions of decay, with a particular focus on microorganisms as agents of transformation in both natural systems and human narratives. Rehnborg works with organic materials — soil, SCOBY, mycelium, salvaged wood, and beeswax — to create sculptural forms that engage processes of decomposition and regeneration, treating fungi and bacteria not as mere subject matter but as active collaborators in the formation of the work. She is currently completing her BAS in Art Practice and Biology at Stanford University.

📸: Claire Haughey

The 2026 Undergraduate Honors Thesis Exhibition “Mindful of You The Sodden Earth” will be closing April 30. Visit Coulter Art Gallery from 12-5pm to see works by honors students Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch and Zoë Rehnborg.

Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch is a Native Hawaiian visual artist from the Island of Hawaiʻi. Her art practice is grounded in a love for her ancestors and ʻohana, who she gets to honor and know more deeply through her work. Through painting, Kea activates family and historical archives to bring her ancestors and the practices that sustained them into space and vibrant color. Her work reflects a personal reclamation of her mo’okūʻauhau (genealogical story) in a settler-colonial context, where knowing and reciting one’s genealogy often requires re-learning — calling out, listening, diving and digging. Painting has enabled this process, allowing an intimate engagement with her own genealogy. As she gathers stories from her grandmother, spends time in the guava fields her grandpa once tended to, paints the hands of her great-grandma she never knew, she reclaims her right to remember while creating space for her familyʻs moʻolelo in historical and visual canons.

Zoë Rehnborg (b. 2003, Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. Informed by her experience working in microbiology labs, her practice explores the ecological and existential dimensions of decay, with a particular focus on microorganisms as agents of transformation in both natural systems and human narratives. Rehnborg works with organic materials — soil, SCOBY, mycelium, salvaged wood, and beeswax — to create sculptural forms that engage processes of decomposition and regeneration, treating fungi and bacteria not as mere subject matter but as active collaborators in the formation of the work. She is currently completing her BAS in Art Practice and Biology at Stanford University.

📸: Claire Haughey

The 2026 Undergraduate Honors Thesis Exhibition “Mindful of You The Sodden Earth” will be closing April 30. Visit Coulter Art Gallery from 12-5pm to see works by honors students Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch and Zoë Rehnborg.

Kea Kahoilua-Clebsch is a Native Hawaiian visual artist from the Island of Hawaiʻi. Her art practice is grounded in a love for her ancestors and ʻohana, who she gets to honor and know more deeply through her work. Through painting, Kea activates family and historical archives to bring her ancestors and the practices that sustained them into space and vibrant color. Her work reflects a personal reclamation of her mo’okūʻauhau (genealogical story) in a settler-colonial context, where knowing and reciting one’s genealogy often requires re-learning — calling out, listening, diving and digging. Painting has enabled this process, allowing an intimate engagement with her own genealogy. As she gathers stories from her grandmother, spends time in the guava fields her grandpa once tended to, paints the hands of her great-grandma she never knew, she reclaims her right to remember while creating space for her familyʻs moʻolelo in historical and visual canons.

Zoë Rehnborg (b. 2003, Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. Informed by her experience working in microbiology labs, her practice explores the ecological and existential dimensions of decay, with a particular focus on microorganisms as agents of transformation in both natural systems and human narratives. Rehnborg works with organic materials — soil, SCOBY, mycelium, salvaged wood, and beeswax — to create sculptural forms that engage processes of decomposition and regeneration, treating fungi and bacteria not as mere subject matter but as active collaborators in the formation of the work. She is currently completing her BAS in Art Practice and Biology at Stanford University.

📸: Claire Haughey

The Department of Art & Art History is calling upon the entire Stanford undergraduate community to participate in our annual campus-wide undergraduate art exhibition, which will be on display at Stanford Art Gallery in Fall 2026.

Undergraduate students can submit up to three works of any medium, from which a distinguished panel of jury members will select the most original, accomplished, expressive, and meaningful. Previous editions of this exciting event have generated a tremendous response and greater numbers of visitors than any other Stanford art exhibit.

All artistic mediums are welcome, including painting, drawing, photography, mixed media, works on paper, sculpture, ceramics, installation art, digital media, video, and performance. There are no size restrictions. We encourage students to visit the Stanford Art Gallery (re-opens May 12) before applying to assess the feasibility of their projects.

Submissions are due by 11:59pm on Monday, June 1! Visit the link in our bio to submit your work! 🌟

#stanfordaah #stanfordarts #studentexhibition #juriedexhibition #opencallforart

SECOND HOLE SECOND WAVE
2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition ⭐️

Opening next month at Stanford Art Gallery! This exhibition will feature the thesis work of our graduating art practice MFA cohort:

Alexa Burrell @fogapocalypse
Vincent Chong @crystalmonkeycalligraphy
Enam Gbewonyo @enamgd
Hudson Hatfield @hudsonbupson
Bailey Scieszka @bailioni

On View: May 12 – June 4, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 14, 5-7pm
Location: Stanford Art Gallery, 419 Lasuen Mall
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 12-5pm
Curated by Jonathan Calm @jonathancalm
Free & open to the public

#stanfordaah #stanfordartpractice #stanfordarts

Congratulations to Zoë and Kea on the opening of their show “Mindful of You The Sodden Earth,” on view at Coulter Art Gallery through April 30!

Art practice majors are accepted into the honors program based on the strength of the portfolios and written proposals submitted at the end of the student’s junior year. As honors students, Zoë and Kea have worked throughout the fall and winter quarters of their senior year, mentored by faculty and Art Practice MFA students, to develop their proposals into the incredible bodies of work on display.

Be sure to stop by! Coulter Art Gallery is open Mon-Fri, 12-5pm. ❤️

Congratulations to Zoë and Kea on the opening of their show “Mindful of You The Sodden Earth,” on view at Coulter Art Gallery through April 30!

Art practice majors are accepted into the honors program based on the strength of the portfolios and written proposals submitted at the end of the student’s junior year. As honors students, Zoë and Kea have worked throughout the fall and winter quarters of their senior year, mentored by faculty and Art Practice MFA students, to develop their proposals into the incredible bodies of work on display.

Be sure to stop by! Coulter Art Gallery is open Mon-Fri, 12-5pm. ❤️

“How we are seen no doubt changes how we see ourselves.” - Gloria Steinem

Join us for a screening of three short documentaries by Jan Krawitz, followed by a discussion with the director.

🗓️ Thursday, May 7 | 5:30-7:30pm
📍 Oshman Hall, McMurtry Building
🎟️ Free & open to the public

About the Films:

MIRROR MIRROR, 17 minutes
This film provocatively explores the relationship between female body image and the quest for an elusive ideal.

IN HARM’S WAY, 27 minutes
A personal memoir that questions the fragile myths instilled in children growing up in the Cold War era.

NICE GIRLS DON’T ASK, 17 minutes
Offering a cautionary tale in the current political climate, the film casts an incisive lens on the “rules for living” embodied in archival social guidance films.

Jan Krawitz is Professor Emerita in the Stanford Department of Art & Art History. Her documentaries have screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad including Sundance, The New York Film Festival, SXSW, AFI Docs, Edinburgh, Visions du Réel, Full Frame, and the Krakow Film Festival. Six of her films received a national broadcast on PBS (Independent Lens, P.O.V., America ReFramed) and Big Enough was broadcast internationally in eighteen countries. She has had artist residencies at Yaddo, Docs in Progress (Washington, D.C.), and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. Jan was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and a recent Fulbright Scholar in Austria.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Art & Art History and the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

Images: Stills from MIRROR MIRROR (1990), IN HARM’S WAY (1996), and NICE GIRLS DON’T ASK (2025).

“How we are seen no doubt changes how we see ourselves.” - Gloria Steinem

Join us for a screening of three short documentaries by Jan Krawitz, followed by a discussion with the director.

🗓️ Thursday, May 7 | 5:30-7:30pm
📍 Oshman Hall, McMurtry Building
🎟️ Free & open to the public

About the Films:

MIRROR MIRROR, 17 minutes
This film provocatively explores the relationship between female body image and the quest for an elusive ideal.

IN HARM’S WAY, 27 minutes
A personal memoir that questions the fragile myths instilled in children growing up in the Cold War era.

NICE GIRLS DON’T ASK, 17 minutes
Offering a cautionary tale in the current political climate, the film casts an incisive lens on the “rules for living” embodied in archival social guidance films.

Jan Krawitz is Professor Emerita in the Stanford Department of Art & Art History. Her documentaries have screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad including Sundance, The New York Film Festival, SXSW, AFI Docs, Edinburgh, Visions du Réel, Full Frame, and the Krakow Film Festival. Six of her films received a national broadcast on PBS (Independent Lens, P.O.V., America ReFramed) and Big Enough was broadcast internationally in eighteen countries. She has had artist residencies at Yaddo, Docs in Progress (Washington, D.C.), and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. Jan was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and a recent Fulbright Scholar in Austria.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Art & Art History and the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

Images: Stills from MIRROR MIRROR (1990), IN HARM’S WAY (1996), and NICE GIRLS DON’T ASK (2025).

“How we are seen no doubt changes how we see ourselves.” - Gloria Steinem

Join us for a screening of three short documentaries by Jan Krawitz, followed by a discussion with the director.

🗓️ Thursday, May 7 | 5:30-7:30pm
📍 Oshman Hall, McMurtry Building
🎟️ Free & open to the public

About the Films:

MIRROR MIRROR, 17 minutes
This film provocatively explores the relationship between female body image and the quest for an elusive ideal.

IN HARM’S WAY, 27 minutes
A personal memoir that questions the fragile myths instilled in children growing up in the Cold War era.

NICE GIRLS DON’T ASK, 17 minutes
Offering a cautionary tale in the current political climate, the film casts an incisive lens on the “rules for living” embodied in archival social guidance films.

Jan Krawitz is Professor Emerita in the Stanford Department of Art & Art History. Her documentaries have screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad including Sundance, The New York Film Festival, SXSW, AFI Docs, Edinburgh, Visions du Réel, Full Frame, and the Krakow Film Festival. Six of her films received a national broadcast on PBS (Independent Lens, P.O.V., America ReFramed) and Big Enough was broadcast internationally in eighteen countries. She has had artist residencies at Yaddo, Docs in Progress (Washington, D.C.), and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. Jan was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and a recent Fulbright Scholar in Austria.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Art & Art History and the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

Images: Stills from MIRROR MIRROR (1990), IN HARM’S WAY (1996), and NICE GIRLS DON’T ASK (2025).

We’re proud to share that @stanforddocfilm program alumni have been nominated for 2026 Emmy Awards! 🌟

Reid Davenport (MFA ‘16) earned a nomination for Outstanding Direction: Documentary for LIFE AFTER, which tells the story of Elizabeth Bouvia, a disabled Californian woman whose 1983 fight for the “right to die” sparked a national debate. Davenport, who makes films about disability from an overtly political perspective, previously won the Best Directing Award at Sundance 2022 for his feature I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE and received the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards. LIFE AFTER premiered at Sundance 2025, where it earned the Special Jury Award. LIFE AFTER is also nominated for Best Documentary, Outstanding Editing: Documentary, and Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, with Lyntoria Newton (MFA ‘17) as co-producer.

Sara Newens (MFA ‘11) earned a nomination for Outstanding Editing: Documentary for her work on THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT, directed by Bonni Cohen (MA ‘94) and Jon Shenk (MA ‘95), which explores the dramatic origin story of the climate crisis and a political battle in the George H.W. Bush administration that changed the course of history. Newens’ editing of PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS (Sundance 2023) earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Picture Editing and a Cinema Eye Honors award. She also edited the seven-time Emmy-nominated series ALLEN V. FARROW.

Faye Tsakas (MFA ‘23) is nominated for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary as a producer on THOUGHTS & PRAYERS, which traces the $3 billion active shooter preparedness industry in the United States and its effect on students and educators. Tsakas was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema and a Vimeo Breakout Creator. Her thesis film CHRISTMAS, EVERY DAY premiered at SXSW 2024 and won the Hot Docs Special Jury Prize.

👏👏👏

Image: Still from LIFE AFTER (2025), directed by Reid Davenport.

#stanfordaah #stanforddocfilm #stanfordarts #documentaryfilm