Author: Michael Chesnick

The 2026 Arizona Biennial features six artists with University of Arizona School of Art ties, including MFA student Sheldon Patten and Professor Sama Alshaibi from the school’s acclaimed Photography, Video & Imaging program.

Joining them among the 31 artists chosen are School of Art alums Claire Fall Blanchette (MFA ’25), Eli Burke (PhD ’25), Mary Meyer (MFA ’05) and Anh-Thuy Nguyen (BFA ’10).

The 39th Biennial, the longest-running statewide juried exhibition in Arizona, is on view from May through September 2026 at the Tucson Museum of Art — juried by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, executive director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at UC Berkeley.

“Serving as a juror for the Arizona Biennial was a genuinely exciting opportunity to take in the creative breadth across the state and deepen my sense of what’s happening in the Southwest,” Rodrigues Widholm said.

Meet the six SOA-related artists and their Biennial work (photos courtesy of the artists):

Sheldon Patten

“Clothesline Randolph, AZ”
“Cotton Fields Randolph, AZ”
“SRP Randolph, AZ”
All inkjet print on premium matte cotton paper, 2025

Artist statement: I create visual documentary work that examines identity, representation and structural inequality. Centered in Randolph, Arizona, this project investigates environmental racism and socioeconomic disinvestment affecting one of the state’s oldest historically Black communities. Established through Arizona’s cotton industry, Randolph was later annexed by the surrounding city of Coolidge and encircled by industrial development and hazardous infrastructure. The work considers how vulnerability and endurance coexist within systems of inequity, centering intimate human experience to reveal the beauty and continuity of collective resilience. I document how land, memory, and belonging endure despite displacement and political marginalization.

Bio: Patten is a lens-based artist from Toronto entering his second year of the MFA program at the School of Art. Using portraiture and visual documentary, he represents the impacts of displacement, environmental harm and resource scarcity imposed on historically Black and Caribbean communities. His earlier work — “Like a Rose”— examines the intimate bond between the artist and their mother as they navigate her living with Parkinson’s disease, tracing caregiving, loss of autonomy and the transformation of identity confronted by neurodegenerative illness.

Instagram and website: @sheldon_patten and sheldonpatten.com

Sama Alshaibi

“Tabula Rasa”
Mixed media collage, 2026

Artist statement: “My practice emerges from aftermath, where fragmentation is the material condition of political conflict and forced migration. I explore Iraq’s built environments and the systems that imagined them. Baghdad is not only a place, but a living archive shaped by developmental ambition and political interruption. Using fieldwork, archival materials, and on-site imaging, I trace how modernization was spatialized and then stalled, and how its residue remains legible in form. Through LiDAR scanning, photography and video, I render Baghdad as a palimpsest. Return—grounded in my position as both exiled and returnee—exposes the misalignment between memory, form, and experience.”

Bio: Born in Iraq to a Palestinian mother and Iraqi father, and now a naturalized US citizen, Alshaibi is a Regents Professor of Art and Chair of the Photography, Video and Imaging program at the School of Art. Her work has been widely exhibited, including at the 55th Venice Biennale, the 13th Cairo International Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Crystal Bridges Museum of Art (State of the Art 2020), and the Barjeel Foundation (UAE). Aperture Foundation published her monograph, Sama Alshaibi: Sand Rushes In, in 2015. Alshaibi is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography (2021), the Art Matters Betty Parsons Fellowship (2023), the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture Visual Arts Award (2017), and residencies at MacDowell (2025), the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (2024), and Artpace (2019).

Instagram and website: @sama_alshaibi and samaalshaibi.com

Claire Fall Blanchette

“Tangled Currents”
Reishi mycelium, hemp hurd, hardwood shavings, clay, cardboard, paper, xanthan gum, and steel (2025)
“Reclamare”
Screen print and reishi spores on Rives BFK (2025)

Artist statement: “Tangled Currents” uses eight historic landfills along the Santa Cruz River in Tucson as a framework to examine the sustained consequences of human activity on a local ecosystem. Each sculpture represents one of these sites and offers a speculative solution for their remediation. The work is created with reishi mycelium. Mycelial networks can clean toxins from soil and water through the process of myco-remediation and form reciprocal relationships with other organisms that increase their collective chance of survival. “Tangled Currents” presents an alternative to human-centered ways of thinking by examining natural processes for guidance in developing a mutually beneficial world.

Bio: Blanchette is an artist working across multiple disciplines including sculpture, printmaking and drawing. She holds an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Arizona in Tucson and a BFA in Printmaking and History of Art from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. Recently, she was an artist-in-residence in the Expressive Arts Department at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico, where she had a solo show, “Ground Truthing,” at the Francis McCray Gallery. Using organic and unconventional materials, she investigates the boundaries that humans have established between the built world and the environment. Blanchette is the recipient of the Marcia Grand Centennial Sculpture Prize (University of Arizona), Helen Gross Award (University of Arizona), Reba Stewart – Genevieve McMillan Travel Fellowship (Massachusetts College of Art and Design). She also was an artist-in-residence at Djerassi Resident Artist Program (CA), The Land With No Name (AZ), and Konstepidemin Arts Center (Gothenburg, Sweden). She has shown nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions.

Instagram and website: @clr_fall and cfblanchette.com

Eli Burke

“The Opening”
Photograph printed on coroplast, 2024

Artist statement: Artists and cousins Eli and Jesse Burke weave a visual narrative that intertwines identity, nature, and transformation through collaborative photography. Their work-in-progress explores themes of trans identity, masculinity, and embodiment, while examining the interplay between the human experience and the natural world. The Burkes’ photographs reflect a profound connection between the shifting landscapes and the fluidity of the trans body. The ever-changing desert, with its resilient flora and vast skies, mirrors the process of transformation within the body, particularly the trans body, reflecting both its vulnerabilities and strength as it undergoes constant redefinition.

Bio: Burke is an interdisciplinary artist working across drawing, painting, printmaking, photography and installation, exploring themes of loss, identity, queer embodiment, magic, empathy, and vulnerability. Burke earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in Art and Visual Culture Education from the University of Arizona School of Art.

Instagram and website: @iheartfeelings and eliburke.com

Mary Meyer

“The Leaf Connection”
Hand-carved ceramic leaves and pins, 2024-25

Artist statement: My sculptural practice examines the relationship between humans and the botanical world, grounded in Arizona’s ecology and shaped by biophilia—the innate human affinity for living systems. Working with clay, wood, and found objects, I focus on tactile experiences to explore cycles of growth, adaptation, and resilience shared by bodies and plants. “The Leaf Connection” extends this inquiry through hand-carved ceramic leaves inspired by community-sourced observations of local flora, highlighting citizen science and our shared responsibility for urban biodiversity. Through these works, I create contemplative spaces where material presence, embodied encounter, and desert environment intersect to deepen connection to place.

Bio: Meyer is a sculptor whose work investigates the relationship between the human form and the natural environment. Originally trained in stone carving, she is drawn to meditative processes and materials such as clay, wood, and metal that foster the intuitive exploration of form. Meyer grew up in the Midwest and has lived in Arizona for 30 years. She holds a BFA in sculpture from Arizona State University, where she studied foundry casting methods and metalworking. She completed her graduate studies at the University of Arizona, where she received the MFA Fellowship for her work with large mixed media installations. The artist, who has exhibited throughout Arizona and Royal Caribbean International, has served as an adjunct professor teaching sculpture at Arizona State University, Scottsdale Community College and Chandler-Gilbert Community College.

Instagram and website: @marymeyerstudio and marymeyerstudio.com

Anh-Thuy Nguyen

“Rice is Me”
2-separate-channel video with sound, 2025

Artist statement: The works I submitted here are drawn from the multi-disciplinary project “Rice is Mẹ” (Mẹ is Mother in Vietnamese). Through the powerful symbol of rice, I embark on a journey to reconnect with my roots, family, and traditions, while navigating the complexities of cultural assimilation. I blend my primary approaches (photography, video) with ceramics, sculpture and poetry in this new work to express my complex emotions of loss, hope and resilience. At the heart of the “Rice is Mẹ” project, I intended to reclaim rice as my artistic medium by combining Vietnamese and American clay to sculpt each grain of rice.  

Bio: Nguyen live and works in Tucson, where she is head of the Visual Arts Department at Pima Community College. She received her MFA in Photography/Video from Southern Methodist University, a BFA in Photography from the University of Arizona; and a BA in Economic Geography from the University of Social Sciences & Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. As a Vietnamese-American artist, she investigates her cultural and identity as well as her migration story through photography, video, installation and performance art. She has received grants and fellowships from the Arizona Commissions for the Arts, Art Foundations for Tucson and Southern Arizona, Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, and the Oklahoma Center for Humanities. Recently. She was awarded the 2023 Second Sight award from Medium Photo, and her work work is in the permanent collections of Amarillo Museum of Art, Tucson Museum of Art, the Center for Photography at Woodstock among others.

Instagram and website: @anh_thuynguyen and anh-thuynguyen.com

Other Biennial artists

• Michael Afsa
• Maria Ruth Aragon De la Fuente
• Scott Baxter
• Brass Tuna
• Cherie Buck-Hutchison
• Manny Burruel
• Ashley Czajkowski
• Hoge Day
• Rafael Angel Diaz
• Mikey Estes
• Nathan Garcia
• Lex Gjurasic
• Maura Grogan
• Kate Hoover
• Adia Jamille

Related stories

• This is Tucson story
• Southwest Contemporary preview
• Tucson Weekly profile
• Tucson Museum of Art preview

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.

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• Medici Monday: Andrés Caballero
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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:

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.”