School of Art and Design at Illinois

Inspired by Fresh Press Paper (founded at Illinois in 2012 by graphic design professor Eric Benson), Zayed University recently launched Fresh Press Emirates, a hands-on initiative where students turn discarded hotel linens and plant materials into handmade paper for art and design projects.

The program brings together students across art, science, and sustainability while giving them a closer look at circular design and material reuse. Great to see a project that started at Illinois showing up in creative spaces halfway around the world.🌍📜

Read more! https://en.aletihad.ae/news/uae/4660884/students-at-zayed-university-open-new-chapter-in-sustainabil

Congratulations to Art Education PhD student Syed Faizaan Ahab on receiving the People’s Choice Award in the 2026 Image of Research competition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign! 🎉

Here's how Syed described his award-winning project, "Move:"

This image captures a video-based research project, "Move," at the intersection of movement, listening, and power. The three performers stand facing the viewer, gesturing classical South Asian dance vocabularies. Yet their bodies are held in stillness rather than spectacle. Their hands articulate meaning, but their expressions remain restrained, refusing explanation and performance as entertainment. This tension highlights how embodied knowledge is often rendered hypervisible yet misread within dominant cultural spaces. The stark lighting and frontal composition render the performers almost haunting, neither fully absorbed by the space nor entirely outside it. This visual ambiguity reflects what Allie Martin describes as the politics of listening, where sound and presence are interpreted through social hierarchies rather than neutral perception. Just as Martin argues that sound "happens in interpretation" (Martin, 2025), this image suggests that movement, too, is legible only through the frameworks viewers bring with them. The performers' stillness becomes a form of sonic restraint, an echo of moments where cultural expression is asked to quiet itself to belong. In this way, the image operates as both documentation and critique: a reminder that presence, like sound, does not require permission to exist, even when it is misheard or only partially seen.

Organized annually by the Graduate College and the Media Commons of the University Library, the Image of Research competition celebrates the creativity, innovation, and intellectual diversity of graduate student research across disciplines.

Join us in celebrating Syed’s incredible achievement and the powerful impact of arts-based research! 👏

We have an exciting on-campus symposium coming up on Reading Day, May 7 at Temple Hoyne Buell Hall! Come support and be inspired by these amazing speakers! 📙💙

A recap of last years and an invite to this years annual Art & Design’s fashion show, Re-Fashioned 🧶🌟

📸:

Created by ARTS 381, creatures of all shapes and sizes will be paraded through the grass next to A&D at 3pm next Monday, May 5th! 🎊

Interested in building a career as a working painter? Join us and Alum this Friday! We will eat, converse, and even get a tour senior studios!

🍕Lunch at noon in 128 Flagg Hall
💬 Lecture at 1 pm in 131 Flagg Hall

April showers, bring May events! 🌷📅

Attention all Seniors! The Art and Design 2026 Graduation Group Photograph will be taken this Wednesday, April 22 at 12:30 p.m.

This photograph will be your backdrop for the Convocation Ceremony so dress your best! (robe not necessary) 🎓