Author: Michael Chesnick

For Nuala Gwilliam, art began before sunrise.

As a toddler newly moved from Massachusetts to Tucson, Gwilliam often woke up hours before the rest of her family. To keep her occupied, her parents left out crayons, paper and snacks beneath the kitchen table.

“I’d probably attribute the beginning of my ‘artistic career’ to when I was 3 or 4, dealing with jet lag,” Gwilliam said. “So, from a toddler scribbling at 5 a.m., to an awkward middle schooler making comics in the margins of my homework, to a high schooler flourishing in art club, to being here at the University of Arizona, art has always been in the forefront of my mind.”

Now, years later, she’s inspiring young artists to find their voice and is being honored as the College of Fine Arts Outstanding Senior during the May 17 CFA Spring Graduation Convocation in Centennial Hall at 2 p.m. After graduating with a BFA in Art & Visual Culture Education, Gwilliam will start a job teaching art at Catalina High Magnet School in August.

A record of academic excellence

In their nomination letter, School of Art Associate Professor Carissa DiCindio and Professor Ryan Shin described Gwilliam as “one of our strongest recent undergraduates in AVCE,” praising her exceptional academic record, leadership and commitment to youth arts education.

Academically, Gwilliam maintained a 4.0 GPA at the University of Arizona and earned Highest Academic Distinction in 2024 while repeatedly appearing on the Dean’s List with Distinction. Faculty noted her professionalism, thoughtful participation and ability to combine educational theory with practical classroom experience.

“She developed a solid understanding of the principles and procedures of art education and strengthened her instructional and classroom management skills through practical teaching experiences,” DiCindio and Shin wrote.

That experience has taken many forms. Gwilliam worked as a “Chugim” art instructor at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, where she taught weekly art classes for groups of 20 to 30 elementary school students. Her lessons centered around themes such as kindness, gratitude, creativity and persistence.

She also interned with Groundworks, a community arts nonprofit dedicated to creating safe and accessible creative spaces for youth. There, she facilitated public open studio hours, developed lesson plans, volunteered at exhibitions and events, and assisted with promotional design work.

Learning from a fellow School of Art graduate

One of the most influential experiences of Gwilliam’s undergraduate career has been her student teaching placement at Tucson Magnet High School under mentor teacher Elizabeth Denneau, herself a 2018 School of Art BFA graduate in AVCE.

For Gwilliam, the experience has offered a firsthand look at the kind of educator she hopes to become.

“Student teaching at Tucson High has been an amazing experience,” she said. “While studying how to teach is great, actually doing it is an entirely different rodeo.”

She described her students as creative, funny and inspiring, but emphasized the impact Denneau has had on her development as a teacher and artist.

“I truly couldn’t be having the experience I am without Elizabeth Denneau, my mentor teacher,” Gwilliam said. “Her experience as both an artist, and an educator of high school and college students has given me incredibly valuable perspective and insight. She’s truly helped me solidify the teacher I want to be, and I can’t thank her enough.”

The mentorship has also reinforced the strong connections between the School of Art and Tucson’s broader arts education community, with one generation of graduates helping guide the next.

Faculty members say Gwilliam’s teaching philosophy centers on making creativity accessible while encouraging self-expression and confidence.

“I really enjoy watching the cogs turn in someone’s head as they realize something new, or hone a new skill, or express something in a way they haven’t before,” she said. “Teaching art really feels like the pieces falling into place for me.”

Building community through art

Alongside her educational work, Gwilliam has also built a strong artistic practice of her own. Faculty selected several of her projects for exhibition, and this spring she participated in the 2026 BFA exhibition for 2D Studies with her mixed-media installation, “Intersection.”

Gwilliam, who did commission-based illustrative work all throughout high school and into college, is interested in design but also enjoys traditional art. “I’ve worked a lot in mixed media. I love finding new ways to communicate through materials as well as imagery,” she said.

“With my time in both the Illustration, Design & Animation track as well as Art Education, I’ve been able to meet artists with many different disciplines and talents,” she said. “I can’t credit the CFA enough for the impact it’s made on my artistic development, my perspectives on art education, and my personal life and community.”

Though her résumé is filled with accomplishments, some of Gwilliam’s favorite memories are rooted in quieter moments of connection.

She recalls a late night during her freshman year in sculpture class, when she and several classmates stayed in the studio working toward a deadline. Covered in paint and insulation foam dust, the exhausted group was suddenly offered leftover catered food from another campus event.

“I don’t think better words have ever been spoken to a group of hungry 18-year-olds covered in paint,” she said. It was the best food I’d had in weeks — little steak kebabs, brussel sprouts and dessert tarts. All woefully underdressed for the event, we filled our paper plates and laughed at how lucky we were.”

Moments like those helped define her undergraduate experience — one shaped by collaboration, mentorship and community. “I was making friends and art and eating good food and listening to great music, all at once,” she said.

Gwilliam credited Dr. DiCindio and Dr. Shin for playing “a big part in my development of my educational skills and passions.” But she also expressed gratitude to graduate instructors, including Hanan Khatoun, Trent Pachon, Drew Grella and Dylan Hawkinson, as well as faculty members Angie Zielinski and Cerese Vaden for encouraging her artistic growth and supporting her through challenges.

A new chapter at Catalina Magnet High School

After graduation, Gwilliam will begin a full-time position teaching art at Catalina Magnet High School, marking the beginning of her professional career as an educator in Tucson.

The opportunity represents a major milestone for Gwilliam, who hopes to continue building inclusive, community-centered art spaces for students while also developing her own creative practice.

“I see my graduation as the beginning of so many new potential opportunities,” she said.

Alongside teaching, Gwilliam plans to continue freelance illustration work, pursue graphic design studies and stay active in Tucson’s arts community through museum and nonprofit volunteer work.

“I have one life, and I intend to fill it with as much art as I can.”

Growing up in Mexico City, Andrés Caballero made sure to cherish dinnertime with his parents and two older brothers — no matter how busy or tired they all might be.

“It was the one moment we shared each day,” he said. “For me, and for many families, the dining room is a cornerstone of identity. It’s the space where conversations unfold, stories are told, and memories take root.”

Those memories not only helped shape Caballero as an artist, photographer and researcher, they also became the inspiration for his current MFA Thesis Exhibition installation, “IN PLACE,” at the University of Arizona School of Art. Since 2023, the Fulbright student has participated in 23 exhibitions and screening placements, and secured 21 grants, fellowships and awards.

And his latest honor might be the most impressive: the overall Outstanding Graduate student for the College of Fine Arts. Caballero will be honored May 17 at the 2026 CFA Spring Graduation Convocation in Centennial Hall at 2 p.m.

“Andrés exemplifies the CFA criteria through an uncommon combination of rigorous, research-driven creative work, sustained academic excellence, demonstrated leadership and consistent public-facing community engagement,” Regents Professor Sama Alshaibi said in her nominating letter on behalf of the school’s Photography, Video & Imaging (PVI) faculty.

“Grounded in the U.S./Mexico borderlands, his work examines how computational systems reshape borders, domestic space, and memory, with disproportionate consequences for marginalized communities,” she said.

Border families contribute to MFA project

Caballero’s MFA installation, “IN PLACE,” on view at the University of Arizona Museum of Art until May 16, reconstructs a Mexican family’s dining room from the borderlands. As a video of a participating family re-enacting oral histories and everyday domestic gestures plays, a real-time computer vision system quietly tracks the audience’s movement, shifting the room from refuge to a monitored space.

“These everyday scenes, such as sharing a meal, offer a powerful entry point for empathy,” Caballero said. “They reflect the human need for community, stability and care. In doing so, the work reclaims visibility for those often rendered invisible, reminding us that migration is not only about crossing borders, but also about preserving dignity, connection and a sense of place.”

He worked with five families, four from Douglas and one from Tucson, with much of his design work based on continuous visits and conversations, in addition to personal objects they contributed for his final installation.

“This process included the collection of oral histories, which culminated in recorded reenactments of personal memories. These recordings are what the audience sees on one of the screens,” Caballero said. “The relationships I built and the experiences I had during this process remain some of the most meaningful moments of my time here.”

Bringing visibility to school

As far as “meaningful moments,” Caballero has had many during his three years at the School of Art:

Academic: In addition to his Fulbright scholarship and a 3.94 GPA, his other major distinctions include the Marcia Grand Centennial Sculpture Award, the Border Arts Corridor (BAC) Fellowship; the Mellon Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship from the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry; and a Tinker Field Research Grant. He also became the first School of Art MFA student to receive a Roots for Resilience Fellowship from the University of Arizona’s Data Science Institute, an honor typically held by PhD candidates.

Creative activity: His “Borderlands Masks” solo exhibition at the school’s Lionel Rombach Gallery explored the stories of the lucha libre community along the US-Mexico border. But his student work reached well beyond the usual graduate exhibition circuit, including major cultural and civic venues such as the Tucson Museum of Art (“Ya Hecho: Readymade in the Borderlands”), the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson, the 17 Days Video Series at Western Michigan University, and presentations in Guadalajara and Mexico City, demonstrating professional traction and cross-border visibility.

Leadership: Caballero served on the Latin American Art Patrons board and the Sienna Collective, supporting students of all backgrounds and lived experiences, and was active in the school’s Riso club. He also created a professional opportunity for five PVI graduate students by securing a grant from the Graduate and Professional Student Council to support attendance at the Society for Photographic Education 2025 National Conference. He shared advanced technical knowledge through workshops and invited presentations such as “Computer Vision & Vibe Coding,” hosted at the School of Art. He excelled as a graduate teaching assistant, including lab sessions for Intro to Photographic Practices, and as a graduate research assistant to Alshaibi and Associate Dean David Taylor, and as a digital production assistant in the U of A Libraries’ Digitization Services for Special Collections.

Community Outreach: Caballero has hosted public-facing workshops and invited presentations, including the “Documenting the Desert” workshop (Douglas, Arizona), the Computer Vision & Vibe Coding workshop (VARS, Tucson), and an invited presentation for the Tinker Field Symposium (Kiva Theater, Tucson). He also has supported public screenings and events that brought university-linked creative research into civic, binational and community spaces, including projects and presentations at venues such as the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson and community arts sites in the borderlands.

“He brings visibility to the program through media coverage and public storytelling, extending the reach of student research and strengthening the public profile of the School of Art,” Alshaibi said.

MFA project continues his focus on community

In his research, Caballero said he seeks a bilateral and collaborative approach, “where everyone is an active participant in the construction of a border counter-narrative.”

“My goal is to continue strengthening these community ties to generate art that serves as a tool for agency in the face of increasing systems of control,” he said.

As part of his Centennial Prize award, Caballero plans to make his MFA “IN PLACE” installation a traveling exhibition shown in different cities throughout the borderlands, prioritizing public, non-institutional spaces. He’s in the final stages of discussion to show it at a historic public venue in Douglas. “This would be a special location for me because most of the participants from this project live in the area, so I am imagining it as a community pop-up event,” he said.

In addition, Caballero hopes to gather enough documentation to build a comprehensive website for “IN PLACE.” He said: “Beyond serving as a living digital archive, the site will allow the project to reach a wider audience,” he said. “It also becomes a public, open-access resource that exists beyond the institutional walls.”

Looking back and ahead

Caballero credits Professors Alshaibi, Martina Shenal, Taylor and Marcos Serafim — and his Photo, Video & Imaging MFA cohort — for helping him achieve his goals. His first class, Experimental Photographic Techniques with Shenal, set the tone.

“I was delayed a week due to some visa issues, so my first introduction to them was by having my face projected into a huge wall while I could barely see anybody,” Caballero said. “After I finally arrived, I felt welcomed right away and quickly bonded with everyone. At that point, I was experimenting freely, just learning and following my curiosity. That lack of pressure made the experience feel completely liberating.”

He added: “I still remember the time spent in the darkroom with my peers; working through ideas, talking about their processes, and trying to figure out what I wanted to say with my own work. Those moments became meaningful throughout the program.”

As for his career aspirations, Caballero plans to return to Mexico City at some point and apply to PhD programs in Studio Art, both in the United States and internationally. “My research is currently focused on new media and experimental visual arts, and I plan to continue developing projects in this field while eventually teaching courses related to these areas in my country,” he said.

“My goal is to continue working as a full-time artist while remaining engaged in an academic environment,” Caballero said.

More stories

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• Medici Monday: Andrés Caballero
• Arts students join roots for resilience
• Two art students selected as AI Horizons 2.0 fellows

Continuing a tradition since 1970, the School of Art and the University of Arizona Museum of Art will host the 2026 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition at UAMA and the school’s Joseph Gross Gallery.

Eight graduating MFA artists are presenting their work April 18 to May 16, with a public reception on May 14 from 5 to 7 p.m.:

• Arshia Amin
• Aubrey Behrens
• Andrés Caballero
• Molly Iris Etchberger
• Alexis Joy Hagestad
• Dylan Hawkinson
• Maya Jackson
• Matthew Kennedy

“Watching this cohort grow during their MFA studies has been a real privilege. Their dedication and creativity have inspired all of us,” said Professor Karen Zimmermann, School of Art interim director. “By working closely with faculty, they reached this important milestone. I’m excited to see their unique thesis exhibition and am truly proud of what they have accomplished.”

Here’s a look at the artists, including the title of their MFA work, gallery, bio and thesis statement:

Arshia Amin

“Wait, What?”
University of Arizona Museum of Art

Bio: Amin is an Iranian designer and visual artist whose practice explores the intersections of language, culture, and materiality. Through typography, interaction, and spatial design, his research integrates design methodologies with cultural narratives, identity, and memory, examining how design can become a vessel for cultural storytelling.

His design practice also extends into user experience and interface design. As a UX assistant for the University of Arizona Libraries, he has contributed to the redesign of library systems, focusing on accessibility, interface clarity, and the human-centered translation of data. Amin’s portfolio also includes brand identity systems, mobile application design, and institutional poster design, projects that combine formal sensitivity with conceptual depth. Currently based in the United States, Amin is pursuing his MFA in Visual Design at the University of Arizona.

Thesis statement: “Wait, What?” investigates how cultural meaning shifts between Persian and American contexts through interactive design and bilingual visual language. By translating everyday moments of cultural misunderstanding into participatory digital interactions and printed visual fragments, the project demonstrates how humor, confusion, and translation reveal the instability of meaning across cultures and invites viewers to experience what it feels like to navigate multiple cultural perspectives simultaneously.

• Artist’s website: https://arshiaamin.com/
• Instagram: @arshia.aminn

Aubrey Behrens

“Before We Could Name It”
University of Arizona Museum of Art

Bio: Behrens is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tucson. Their practice utilizes plant and animal imagery as a mirror for examining human experiences of loss and resilience. Rooted in ecological, historical, and regionally driven research, they draw parallels between environmental change and the forces that shape cultural identity and human connection. Their current work examines their own inherited relationship to Hawai’i complicated by distance and family separation.

They map the extinction of Native Hawaiian birds against the political erasure of Native Hawaiian culture, tracing the years in which species vanished alongside the legislation, evictions, and silences that defined those same moments for Hawaiian people. For Aubrey, the natural world is a site where personal and collective grief intersects, and the health of a place can be read through the fate of its most vulnerable inhabitants.

Thesis statement: Eight Hawaiian bird species have been declared extinct since my birth in 1993. Their disappearance parallels the growing dislocation of Native Hawaiians from the islands, environmental deterioration, and my own distance from my Hawaiian roots. This work examines the unraveling of ecological systems and its direct impact on cultural continuity.

I have inherited Hawaiian pride along with separation and fractured access to firsthand familial knowledge. Guided by the Hawaiian practice of kilo, an embodied form of attentive observation, “Before We Could Name It” asks viewers to slow down and witness both what has disappeared and what remains, making visible the connection between ecological loss, cultural displacement, and individual survival.

• Instagram: @aubreybehrensart

Andrés Caballero

“IN PLACE”
University of Arizona Museum of Art

Bio: Caballero’s work explores the often unseen infrastructures of control that target dissent and marginalized populations. Migration is central to his practice as both consequence and testimony, emerging from histories of extraction, pillaging, and fractured homes. Building on this approach, Caballero’s practice repurposes emerging technologies such as LiDAR, virtual reality, and creative coding, as counter-methodologies for communal resistance. Through photography, video, installation, and expanded media, he traces how life persists through fractured memory, yet remains constantly disrupted under the pretext of progress.

He is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, the Mellon Fronteridades Graduate Fellowship, the Marcia Grand Centennial Award, and the Tinker Field Research Grant. His work has been exhibited in Mexico and the United States, including at the Tucson Museum of Art, the Nogales Art Museum, and the Museo Archivo de la Fotografía.

Thesis statement: A dining table remembers the traces of conversations, the pauses in between, the rituals of yesterday. What appears here is an echo, not a reconstruction. Fragments of domestic life surface through the cracks, voices and gestures loop through time. These memories refuse to stay still. They run in circles, shift, overlap, and obscure details, the way stories are told around the table. But there is a witness in the room: a silent, machinic gaze. Scanning and detecting as trained, it translates pulse into signal, bodies into points, and space into coordinates. It is capable of remembering everything, absolutely, and in entirely the wrong way. The smell of damp soil, the last chess game between a father and a son, the fading wisp of candle smoke, all exceed digitization, standing as a quiet rebellion against the datasphere. Layers of time coexist in space, and while everything is recorded, its weight slips through the signals.

• Artist’s website: https://www.andrescaballero.me/
• Instagram: @andcaballero_

Molly Iris Etchberger

“everything here is felt in secret”
University of Arizona Museum of Art

Bio: Etchberger is an artist working across multiple mediums including drawing and installation. Emphasizing in printmaking, she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Utah State University.

Her work addresses themes of cross-generational communication and matriarchal systems.

Thesis statement: My research investigates intergenerational communication and the role of secrecy, considering its dual function as a protective mechanism and a barrier to knowledge. Central to this work is the concept of the ‘facade,’ realized as both an architectural exterior and a psychological construct. By exploring the perpetuation of generational trauma within matrilineal relationships, I acknowledge the home as the site in which connections are built. Within this space, I am examining how information is curated or withheld across female lineages.

Combining traditional craft practices with materials that reference domestic structures such as bedsheets, quilts, glass, metal, and wood, I recognize secret-keeping as a maternal role inherited through generations. I compare the restrained communication between myself and my surviving matriarchs with my own inaccessibility to a perfect family record. To illustrate this, I draw from my limited family archive consisting of makeshift reproductions of photographs that have been transmitted through text as well as conflicting oral histories. Translating these imperfect images into graphite drawings allows me to fabricate a relationship with my matriarchal ancestors, and contribute my own narrative to the unreliable family story.

• Artist’s website: https://www.mollyirisprints.com/
• Instagram: @mollyirisprints

Alexis Joy Hagestad

“burn map: 255 fires”
Gross Gallery

Bio: Hagestad is an interdisciplinary artist using lens-based media and multispecies collaboration. Raised in Missoula, Montana, she was profoundly shaped by the diverse landscape surrounding her. 

Her research uncovers often-overlooked narratives of various species, exploring ecological and personal grief while investigating the interconnectedness of all living beings. Alexis holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

Thesis statement: “burn map: 255 fires” is a protective shelter inspired by my experiences as a wildland firefighter and lessons drawn from my ancestors. The shelter consists of images of charred bark, smoldered onto fabric. Using a low-intensity laser, I forge a personal map of 255 controlled burns. The structure protects from external elements, whether due to natural disasters, climate change, or personal narratives.

The lean-to shelter is handcrafted from burnt cotton interwoven with a mylar seedling-protection tarp, supported by a charred cedar base. The installation features a looping video and soundscape that examines the flora and fauna of the ecological communities of my home in Western Montana.

In burn map: 255 fires, I reflect on resilience in ecosystems and in ourselves. This mirrors our own collective struggles to shield against various elements, including generational trauma, which can be like a fire that is both destructive and regenerative. The more we suppress our grief, the more it insists on revealing itself. Fire is integral to our ecosystems, and we are woven into its fabric of existence.

• Artist’s website: https://ajhagestad.com/
• Instagram: @ajhagestad

Dylan Hawkinson

“Press, Surrender”
Gross Gallery

Bio: Hawkinson is an artist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, working with and on paper. He received his BA from Sarah Lawrence College and has a professional background in the performing arts, fashion, and publications. Hawkinson is currently the Graduate Gallery Manager at the University of Arizona, where he curated the group exhibition “Influx” at the Visual Arts Research Studio Project Space and co-curated “Future Tense for the Surface Design Association.”

Hawkinson is a recipient of the PaperWorks Scholarship and the Helen Gross Award and participated in the Penland School of Craft Higher Education Partner Program. He is currently serving as Costume Director for an upcoming production of “Cabaret” at the Santa Fe Playhouse.

Thesis statement: “Press, Surrender” imagines the dry cleaner as a site of garment recovery, where clothing moves through cycles of admission, treatment, and return. Using various papermaking and printmaking processes, personal items are subject to a mysterious yet effective system of care. Within this infrastructure, stains and damage are examined as subtle records of wear.

Through pressure and transfer, clothing leaves imprints of seams, folds, and bodily residue. These marks transform everyday garments into an archive of lived experience. Oxidized wine creates a purple tone that moves throughout the work. A substance that once carried the potential for life-derailing harm is redirected into a material for making, becoming an
act of reclamation.

My process balances preparation and surrender. Careful arrangement gives way to conditions that exceed complete control, allowing materials to reveal what intention alone cannot. In “Press, Surrender,” pressure functions both as a physical force and as a quiet reflection on placing trust in
a process larger than oneself, where relinquishing self-will becomes a way forward.

• Instagram: @dylanhawkinson

Maya Jackson

“She Will Strike Like Lightning”
Gross Gallery

Bio: Born and raised in Richmond, VA, Jackson is an artist working primarily in photography, video and poetry. Her practice resists colonial narratives and visualizes liberation from an imposed realism that stems from systematic oppression. She holds a BFA in Photography and Film from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts (VCUarts). 

She is the recipient of an Anderson Ranch Arts Center 2026 Workshop Scholarship in Photography and New Media, and the 2025 University of Arizona College of Fine Arts Graduate Creative Achievement Award. Recent exhibitions include Death of the Atom (Pidgin Palace Arts, 2025), Border as Network (Pidgin Palace Arts, 2025), SOUTHWEST (Decode Gallery, 2024), Art Bridging Borders (The Ubuntu Project, 2024), and Stories Untold (Tucson Jewish Community Center, 2024).

Thesis statement: “She Will Strike Like Lightning” is a multimedia installation that explores land, language, and labor as crucial elements for redefining a personal place of belonging. Collage, video, and spoken word poetry capture the process of transforming fragments of self into a holistic body that communicates this journey across generations. My initial research stems from an interest in the ways that environment, image-making and vocal expression have evolved across the African diaspora, and what it means to speak for oneself after a history of being spoken for.

Themes of physical labor are present in the work, from the production of clay artifacts that are incorporated into collage and video, contemporary photographs that reference memory and place, and the mining of black literary and image based archives. Emotional labor appears through poetic sentiments that address race, womanhood, relationship to the land, and the desire to be a part of something bigger than the self. Words like “belonging” and “identity” carry a systematic history of racism and the need to assimilate into a colonized existence. “She Will Strike Like Lightning” focuses on coming to terms with what it means to belong, and embracing the privilege to simply be.

• Artist’s website: www.mayajackson.art
• Instagram: @mjacks1

Matthew Kennedy

“Sediment”
Gross Gallery

Bio: Born and raised in the small border town of Nogales, Arizona, Kennedy received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Photography from the U of A School of Art in 2016. Following a period of extensive world travel, as well as instructing English in Hong Kong, he returned to the School of Art to pursue his MFA.

His work is installation based, most commonly using discarded objects, as well as familial collections. Through the use of these materials, the artist frequently speaks to the overarching themes of identity, and location.

Thesis statement: “Sediment” traces my experience as a longtime caregiver living in the aftermath of immense loss, both expected and unexpected. I am now a caregiver with no one left to care for. The land that I know as home, developed by my grandfather and occupied for three generations, has long shaped my sense of self. Since the recent passing of my parents, the relationship toward this land has been shifting. I feel like a stranger in my home, untethered from what once felt certain.

Using soil from my family compound, I make bricks displaced from their usual function as shelter. The soil carries the residue of what came before, holding labor, memory and inheritance. Using my family’s most valued dinnerware set, I recast something fragile in concrete, attempting to preserve what cannot fully be held. This action simultaneously purports its own futility, and the concrete dishware creates markers of grief, memory, and estrangement. As I move through this new stage of life, the work becomes a way of reckoning with loss and reimagining what home can hold.

• Instagram: @mateokennedy

The eight MFA artists’ work will be on view at the UAMA and Joseph Gross galleries Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free in both venues.

Jacques Servin isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.

And on a warm Saturday afternoon in downtown Tucson, neither are his University of Arizona students as they mix dirt, sand, water and buffelgrass. They’re making adobe bricks that could someday be used in low-income housing projects, while also helping remove an invasive grass that threatens native desert ecosystems and fuels wildfires.

The messy work is part of a School of Art special topics course led by the internationally recognized media artist and activist Servin, a visiting professor who enlisted 10 undergraduate and graduate students to assist local buffelgrass adobe builder David Walker in realizing a decade-old vision.

“Digging deep in the mud pit made me realize how perfectly this applies to the ‘bottom of the barrel’ metaphor — everybody knows that the sweetest apples are at the bottom,” says Beihua Guo, a second-year MFA student in Photography, Imaging and Video. “I’m fascinated by the course. Everyone is pursuing something that’s going to be able to save a human being, no matter what Mother Nature throws at them. ‘Buffel-brick’ is the answer.”

Servin thinks so, too. As co-founder of the Yes Men, who use socially engaged art and satire to confront corporate greed, Servin calls the buffelgrass adobe project “revolutionary” — because Walker’s idea is to eventually pay unhoused people to help build their own housing.

“I thought it was the best idea I’d ever heard, and I wanted to help make it happen,” Servin said. “Another revolutionary thing is that it’s turning the scourge into a resource. So, it becomes a positive thing. The weed gets used and it disappears.”

Public presentation set for May 6

Beyond brickmaking, Servin’s class is producing risograph-letterpress posters, videos and a website — barriobuffelworks.org — to raise awareness about buffelgrass and how it can be used to develop community-driven, affordable housing.

Students also are meeting with city officials about building codes and other issues — and will hold a public presentation on May 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the School of Art lobby and atrium, 1031 N. Olive Road.

“(Servin’s) absolute sincerity is what impresses me most,” Guo says. “If you look at the premise of using a highly flammable, invasive ecological disaster to build homes, you might think we’re making a really strange satire. And yet, it turns out that these things actually work and could be funded by Tucson and the university to help people.”

During their Wednesday class session in the Art Building, Guo is joined by fellow School of Art students Fiona Doherty, Josiah Lamas, Bella Mayer and Alex Scherotter; History major Clare Jones; College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA) students Annamaria Pongratz, Abigail Power and Lauren Stock; and MS student and CAPLA lecturer Sheehan Wachter.

They make the bricks on Saturdays, taking turns at different stations at the Barrio Buffelworks Adobe Brickyard, 931 W. Mission Lane, just west of downtown near Mission Garden.

As the students shovel and mix the mud and grass in wheelbarrows and troughs, others pack the mixture into molds — sliding the long, fresh bricks into neat rows under the sun to dry.

Calling the course “an exciting interdisciplinary studio,” School of Art Interim Director Karen Zimmermann is impressed by the students as they “manufacture materials and advocate for change through public demos and policy work.”

“These skills will help students address future issues and provide a model for future community and collaborative work,” she says.

Buffelgrass bricks are resilient

To help give the class a long-term vision, Servin turned to Walker, who has organized community buffelgrass pulls on “A” Mountain and used it to build for over 20 years. Students have promoted the Saturday events to the public, and Walker also invites high school students from the local Nosotros Academy to help out.

“Nice and easy,” Walker tells students as they try to lift a brick from the mold. “Take a deep breath … and pull straight up.”

The beige-colored bricks can dry in one to four weeks, but Walker says during the summer heat it might take just a couple of days.

“I’ve built three casitas with adobe buffelgrass,” Walker says, including one in his backyard 23 years ago for his mother-in-law when his son was born. “It’s my favorite room.”

The casitas are “pretty raw on the outside, with no finish, but they’ve lasted in the weather,” Walker says. “The adobe on the surface might wear out, but then it hits that buffelgrass, and it can’t erode anymore. The grass acts as a stabilizer and an insulator.”

When he moved to Tucson some 30 years ago from southern California, Walker built straw-bale and rammed-earth homes. “I’d been wanting to try (buffelgrass adobe), but I didn’t want to do it on my own. It’s such a good idea because it involves the community in picking the buffelgrass and making the bricks — and we need low-income housing.”

“I’m in love with the idea that this is 4,000 years of history below our feet,” Walker says. “There are pit houses underneath us, and we’re using the same earth. It’s hyper-local.

“Native Americans were making adobe into huts forever, so it’s nothing new. But they didn’t have buffelgrass, and if they did, they probably would have used it because it’s pretty strong material.”

In the 1930s, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service introduced buffelgrass to Southern Arizona for cattle forage and to control erosion. Planting continued until the 1980s, when it became widely recognized as an invasive species dangerous to the desert.

College gives Servin thumbs-up

Given the low-income housing shortage in Tucson and hoping to “dig ourselves out from under a giant corporate system,” Servin pitched the idea for the buffelgrass adobe class to Zimmermann and College of Fine Arts and Arizona Arts Dean Hasan Elahi, whom he met years before.

Both administrators loved the project, even though “I didn’t know how to build anything,” Servin says with a laugh. “But I do know how to organize and process the class. And everyone seems like they are getting along really well.”

Servin is happy to help shape the next generation of creators at the University of Arizona, as he has done previously through teaching appointments at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Parsons School of Design.

The Yes Men produced three feature-length films — including “The Yes Men Fix the World” — and screened them at film festivals, universities and art institutions. In one of their most well-known actions, Servin impersonated a Dow Chemical spokesperson during a live television broadcast, drawing global attention to the company’s ongoing failure to address the catastrophic Bhopal disaster.

Servin, who grew up in Tucson, is a 1986 University of Arizona graduate in Mathematics. His father, Henri Servin, taught French literature as a U of A professor from 1967 to the late 1990s.

Jacques Servin gave the Fall Convocation keynote speech to College of Fine Arts graduates in December 2025. Comparing the world’s current problems to a Jenga tower collapsing. He told students “the blocks are there for the artists to play with — and that’s what we do best. I’m really convinced that we’re more likely now than ever before … to effect real change in the world.”

For Servin, his buffelgrass adobe class is also a way to effect change “by literally digging ourselves out from under the big corporate building trade — in Tucson at least — while providing housing, work and community for the most vulnerable members of our society.”

“It’s completely outside the machinery of capitalism,” says Servin, his hands caked with mud. “We actually can house everybody without relying on corporations.”

Three University of Arizona doctoral students in Art & Visual Culture Education will present their research during the 2026 National Art Education Association Convention in Chicago.

Ziyu Feng, Seoyeon Jenn Kim and Yuqing Wang will join School of Art Assistant Professor Ilayda Altuntas, who will be leading the Seminar for Research in Art Education (SRAE) Interest Group Chairperson’s Panel on March 6.

The panel features Graduate Student Research Lightning Talks — a mentored national session designed to support emerging scholars as they share current research, build professional networks, and engage in conversations about research development, publishing and academic career pathways.

Feng integrates climate data visualization with sustainable handmade papermaking to explore how knowledge emerges through embodied and ecological engagement. Rather than treating climate data as abstract information, her work re-materializes it through tactile processes, positioning fibers, water, environmental forces, and human bodies as active participants in meaning-making. This transdisciplinary approach bridges art and science while foregrounding sustainability and climate education.

Kim will present “From Page to Practice,” which investigates how picturebook pedagogy and arts-based inquiry cultivate critical consciousness in art teacher education, with attention to race-conscious and socioculturally responsive teaching.

Wang will present “Self-Expression and Body Marks: Community-Based Art Practices for Healing and Body Awareness.” Her arts-based research is grounded in embodied epistemology, and during the community engagement portion of the session, she will facilitate a participatory activity connected to relational meaning-making through body marks.

“The Chairperson’s Panel is intentionally structured as a mentorship space where graduate students not only present research, but also connect across institutions and engage with current issues in the field,” Altutnas said. “It reflects SRAE’s long-standing commitment to rigorous, community-oriented scholarship in art education.”

Altuntas will be joined by other School of Art AVCE faculty at the March 5-7 convention, including Professors Amy Kraehe and Ryan Shin and Associate Professor Carissa DiCinido.

Shin and Kraehe will co-present the Invited Studies in Art Education Lecture: “Principled Leadership in Art Education: Understanding and Promoting Change in Teaching, Research and Administration.”

Kraehe will be part of “Sociological Art Education: Methods and Applications for Today,” a panel presentation that takes stock of sociological approaches in art education and gauges interest in a book proposal on critical and reflexive sociological methods used by art education researchers and teachers. Sociological framings may be a useful pivot that keeps art education discourse mobile during trying times.

Kraehe also will participate in “Beyond Binaries: Creative Acts in Precarious Times,” a session that responds to the challenges that art educators experience in their classrooms and communities in these precarious times and the productive ways to navigate art teaching and learning.

Altuntas and Kraehe will be part of the SRAE Business Meeting session: “Networking and Research Advice for Graduate Students and Emerging Scholars.”

Shin will attend the Asian Art and Culture Interest Group executive board meeting and be part of the
Studies in Art Education Panel Session for International Authors. He also will help lead an advisory session, “Writing for Studies in Art Education,” for prospective authors interested in submitting manuscripts for review.

In addition, Shin will be a panel member of the session, “Policy & Action in Difficult Times: Supporting Art Educators’ Diverse Perspectives in Contested Art Educational Contexts.” The panelists will offer strategic policies for inclusive curricula, ethical pedagogies, and advocating for art education programs that address recent challenges to the field.

DiCindio will help present “Centering Critical Consciousness Through Local History, Public Art, and Monuments: Research Commission Sponsored.” She and the panel will discuss public art, local history and social practice to investigate the role of the arts in civic engagement, collective care and advocacy. DiCindio also will be part of the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education Author Roundtable, focusing on the theme of “Movement and Momentum.”