Catalyzing Change

BIPOC Fellowship
 

The first ever Catalyzing Change BIPOC Fellowship in Digital Arts and New Media will be awarded to Saul Villegas, incoming student for the DANM Fall 2022 cohort. Villegas was selected for the $10,000 fellowship based on the excellence of his application and portfolio.

DANM Director Karlton Hester writes of the new fellowship:

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Since becoming DANM director in the fall of 2021, one direction that I introduced in a document entitled "Catalyzing Change" was the creation of the "Catalyzing Change BIPOC Fellowship." We are committed to proactively empowering underrepresented DANM MFA students by supporting the program's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (and anti-racism) through promoting equal opportunity and creating financial educational incentives. Thus, "Catalyzing Change" is directed at changing the appalling homogeneous demographic makeup of the Digital Arts and New Media community by establishing funding for BIPOC people entering our DANM program through identifying, funding, and attracting promising and creative BIPOC students to DANM's cohort each year. 

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Villegas grew up in the rural town of Avenal, CA (Kings County) where he developed his unique voice using traditional & digital art practices by taking on drawing, painting, and graphic design work in the community. He recently completed his BA in the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz where his research emphasized manual and digitals methods to bridge Art and Science through archives and design. Bringing together an interdisciplinary approach to art-making, his latest projects use altered imagery to comment on perception and the ways that we form our human experience and view the world around us through storytelling.

To view more of Villegas' work, visit his art portfolio MODERNO.

 

Photo Credit: Brian J. Santos