November 2022 - School of Art

Professor Ryan Shin has published a co-edited book through Routledge, “Counternarratives from Asian American Art Educators: Identities, Pedagogies, and Practice Beyond the Western Paradigm.”

It’s his second book released this year – and he was the leading editor on both.

An e-book for “Counternarratives” is available now, and the hard copy will be out soon. Shin’s co-editors are Maria Lim, Oksun Lee and Sandrine Han.

“Counternarratives” collects and explores the professional and pedagogical narratives of Asian art educators and researchers in North America, according to Shin. Few studies published since the substantial immigration of Asian art educators to the United States in the 1990s have addressed their professional identities in higher education, K-12, and museum contexts. By foregrounding narratives from Asian American arts educators within these settings, this edited volume enacts a shift from Western, Eurocentric perspectives to the unique contributions of Asian American practitioners, Shin said.

In short, the book highlights the voices and experiences of Asian art educators and serves as a scholarly resource for exploring their identity formation, construction, and development of a historically underrepresented minoritized group in North America.

Shin contributes to the introduction and is the author of Chapter 6, “Decolonization in Art Education Theory and Practices.”

“My narrative delineates the transformative process of an art educator from an oppressed scholar who regurgitated Eurocentric and White art education theories as orthodox knowledge,” Shin says, “to a critical art education scholar who challenges and problematizes dominant Western pedagogy.

“Specifically, I describe the three stages of my pedagogical development as a counternarrative from an international graduate student who was immersed in self-colonization,” Shin says, “to an early career art education professor who introduced ethnic minority visual culture into the art classroom and contributed to establishing an NAEA issue group, Asian Art and Culture Interest Group … and finally to an Asian American art educator who develop Asian critical pedagogy (ACP) as a new lens to challenge White master pedagogy in the field of art education.”

Shin also co-edited the 2022 book, “Borderless: Global Narratives in Art Education,” with Karen Hutzel.

In spring 2022, Shin received the COMC J. Eugene Grigsby Jr. Award from the National Art Education Association. The award, from the Committee on Multiethnic Concerns, honors individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the field of art education in advancing and promoting education, investigation, and celebration of cultural and ethnic heritage within our global community.

University of Arizona School of Art master’a alumna Bella Maria Varela was named a prestigious Early Career Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin as part of its Expanding Approaches to American Arts initiative.

For the next two years, the 2021 Master of Fine Arts graduate in Photo, Video and Imaging will receive research funding, studio space and robust mentorship at UT-Austin to help prepare for a career in academia.

Varela moved to El Paso, Texas, after graduation to attend the Border Art Residency (BAR), where she helped establish a new arts and philosophy program — Transformative Learning Communities — in elChamizal, a barrio on the U.S.-Mexico Border.

The artist uses video and cultural objects to explore the intersections of immigration, sexuality and gender identity. At UT-Austin, her teaching focuses on combining found objects, digital, photography, green screen performances, and experimental video into non-traditional and virtual classroom environments to guide students to explore their relationship with space, culture and community.

“We are thrilled to welcome Bella . . . into our community of artists and scholars,” said Raquel Monroe, a College of Fine Arts associate dean at UT-Austin. “(Her) curiosity and transdisciplinary methodologies are inspiring.”

Varela, whose parents were Guatemalan immigrants, grew up in inner-city Washington D.C. At the University of Arizona, Varela served as a facilitator with the Common Ground Alliance and QTPOC (Queer and Trans People of Color). Using photography, video and installation work, Varela’s artwork explored her identity as a first-generation Latinx women exploring and reclaiming American landscapes.

“I cut and reconfigure iconic material to skewer mainstream anti-immigration rhetoric, subvert the appropriation of Latinx culture and queer mythologies of Americanness,” Varela said.

Her practice is rooted in the resourceful legacy of immigrant hustlers, which has compelled her to not only collect but also corrupt and alter found objects and images to amplify the power dynamics inherent within it.

In April 2022, during her Border Art Residency in El Paso, she presented a mixed media installation at a Las Cruces, New Mexico, gallery entitled “@Border Becky,” which she also exhibited at the University of Arizona Museum of Art during her studies. It combined photography and two videos with fleece blanket assemblages to explore the intersection of immigration and gender identity through the lens of contemporary pop culture and mass media.

At the University of Arizona, she received first place in the 5 Minute Film Festival at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Tucson for her work titled “Triathlon” and was accepted into the Mellon-Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship Program. Varela attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she majored in Mass Communication and minored in Photography. After receiving her undergrad degree, she returned to Washington to serve as a museum assistant at the Phillips Collection, assistant manager at the Renwick Gallery Store, and as arts program coordinator with All Our Kids DC.