Art History Student Research Symposium
Students Shine in the 20th Annual
Art History Prizes
Students from all majors submitted papers, projects, and presentations for the Annual Art History Research Paper Prize and Art History Symposium. These spanned topics including guitar design, depictions of queer identity, domestic spaces and women’s identity, cross cultural aspects of fast food restaurant design, modern stagecraft and theater, and basketball shoe marketing.
The symposium on May 15 attracted a full house in the Dowd Gallery with presentations on lion dances (Tiffany Fan), traditional Chinese painting compared to contemporary digital art (Ellie Parsons), Andean textiles (Darasimi Ogunleye), bringing Daoist ideas from Chinese landscape paintings to life (Annabelle Reddy), and a report on the Arts Management Minor summer internship at the de Saisset Museum (Elise Fendon, Lucas Gustin, and Taliya Peiris).
Prizes were announced at the Annual Paella and Awards Ceremony on June 5. The prize for Best Research Paper or Project was presented to Annabelle Reddy for Integrating Daoist Biophilia Into Our Common Spaces: How We Harmonize With Plant Growth. The prize for a paper from a Culture and Ideas course was awarded to Rowan Hepler for The Sino-Soviet Split and Chinese Cultural Revolution. Ellie Parsons won an honorable mention for Camouflage and Construction in ChineseLandscape Painting. The award for the symposium presentations was won by Tiffany Fan for Between Spectacle and Community: American and Malaysian Lion Dance, with an honorable mention for Darasimi Ogunleye for Andean Textiles through Time. The submissions showed the range and depth of student interests and explorations, and their ability to channel rigorous research into compelling and innovative papers, projects, and presentations.
We thank and congratulate all our undergraduate scholars who shared their hard work and contributed to this event. The faculty committee that reviewed submissions looks forward to seeing more of their efforts next year, alongside new participants and contributors, in this ongoing end-of-year competition.
An additional warm (virtual) applause for the prize winners noted below.
Best Research Paper for an Art History Course: Annabelle Reddy '28 (Art History major, French and Francophone Studies minor, Arts Management emphasis) - Integrating Daoist Biophilia Into Our Common Spaces: How We Harmonize With Plant Growth
Best Research Paper for a Cultures & Ideas Course: Rowan Hepler '28 (Individual Studies major & Mathematics minor) - The Sino-Soviet and Chinese Cultural Revolution: Visualized and Implemented Through 20th Century Propaganda Posters
Honorable Mention Research Paper for Culture & Ideas Course: Ellie Parsons '29 (Finance major) - Camouflage and Construction in Chinese Landscape Painting
Best Art History Symposium Presentation: Tiffany Fan '29 (Sociology major & Public Health Science major) - Between Spectacle and Community: American and Malaysian Lion Dance
Honorable Mention Art History Symposium: Darasimi Ogunleye '28 (Accounting and Information Systems major) - Threaded Continuity: Andean Textiles Across Time
Recognition for presenting at the Annual Art History Symposium at SCU: Lucas Gustin '27 (Art History major & Arts Management emphasis) - Photography, Uranium, and the Navajo Landscape
