November 30, 2021

Teaching Fellowships Support Early-Career Art and Design Educators at ArtCenter College of Design

Ray Chang and Ricky Weaver bring new diverse perspectives in experimental animation and visual art to students across campus

ArtCenter College of Design is pleased to welcome artists Ray Chang and Ricky Weaver as Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD) Teaching Fellows during the 2021–22 academic year. Chang and Weaver are teaching as studio faculty with students throughout the College as a cross departmental collaboration.

“Emerging artists and designers such as Ray and Ricky help to challenge the status quo and bring a new kind of energy across disciplines at the College,” said Jane McFadden, chair of Humanities and Sciences at ArtCenter College of Design. “It is very rewarding to witness them making contributions and bringing new ideas, new possibilities to the classroom. It is also important for students to be exposed to new perspectives on campus.”

“Our goal is to mentor and support diverse faculty at ArtCenter who conduct research and create work relevant to historically under-supported domains and who bring new practices to our classrooms and studios,” said McFadden.

“Ray and Ricky are an extraordinary addition to our stellar faculty and an excellent beginning to a new tradition at the College,” said Karen Hofmann, provost at ArtCenter College of Design. “Looking to the future, we’ve committed to welcome AICAD Teaching Fellows every year to revitalize our curricula and support these up-and-coming creative scholars in their career trajectories.”

Ray Chang is a Taiwanese-American artist, who received his MFA in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts in 2020. Through experimentation of mechanical sculpture and installation, he explores themes of visual phenomena, automation and broad feelings of ennui and alienation.

“Ray is an amazing cross-over talent who has made a place for himself in the space between fine art and product design with film and entertainment,” said Chris Hacker, chair, Product Design department at ArtCenter College of Design. “Students are gaining an understanding of ‘making machines’ and what they could mean across the work that interests them.”

Ricky Weaver is an image-based artist from Ypsilanti, MI. She received her BFA from Eastern Michigan University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Weaver has shown work at the 13th Havana Biennale, Expo Chicago, Black Studies Gallery at UT Austin and more.

Weaver’s practice prioritizes the ways in which image materializes within a spatiotemporal collapse. Their application of scripture, hymn, and colloquial passages observe the nuances of the everyday as portals to worlds that don’t require escape. She addresses the sonic, linguistic, and visual as a way to posture the body as a central mechanism for storing, downloading and transferring archives.

“Ricky’s approach to narrative, in her own work and in her work in the current ‘Portrait Reconsidered’ studio class, brings a new cross-current of creative interdisciplinarity, exploring depth, meaning and overlapping histories in articulations of identity,” said Laura Cooper, chair of the Fine Art department at ArtCenter College of Design. “We look forward to Ricky’s continued work bringing together Fine Art and Photography students next semester, as they develop their bodies of work side by side with her mentorship and support.”

Chang and Weaver are two of 19 Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD) fellows selected to participate in a yearlong, Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship at participating AICAD institutions during the 2021–22 academic year.

The Fellowship program seeks to provide professional practice opportunities to high-achieving alumni who have recently graduated from AICAD member schools, while also increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of faculty at these institutions. AICAD institutions including ArtCenter aspire to create a climate that recognizes and values diversity as central to excellence in art and design education. AICAD Fellowships include structured and unstructured mentoring and professional development opportunities along with direct teaching experience, health benefits, and other monetary supports.

About ArtCenter: Founded in 1930 and located in Pasadena, California, ArtCenter College of Design is a global leader in art and design education. ArtCenter offers 11 undergraduate and 10 graduate degrees in a wide variety of industrial design disciplines as well as visual and applied arts. In addition to its top-ranked academic programs, the College also serves members of the Greater Los Angeles region through a highly regarded series of year-round extension programs for all ages and levels of experience. Renowned for both its ties to industry and its social impact initiatives, ArtCenter is the first design school to receive the United Nations’ Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status in recognition of its commitment to social impact design through Designmatters. Throughout the College’s long and storied history, ArtCenter alumni have had a profound impact on popular culture, the way we live and important issues in our society.

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MEDIA CONTACT:

Teri Bond, Media Relations Director
ArtCenter College of Design
teri.bond@artcenter.edu
626 396.2385 office