Center for the Arts and Humanities

Natalia Cantu ‘24, DH student fellow (English and Biology)"Digital Finding Tools for the Tenacious Box Set of Zines"  (Advised by Kirstyn Leuner, English)

The Tenacious Box Set is a collection of zines published by women in prison and held in the Special Collections at SCU. Natalia will be completing a finding aid for this important material, focusing on an index that will organize each publication by topic, theme, author, and date. Her goal is to make the impressive works within the Tenacious Box Set more digitally accessible to students and scholars at and beyond SCU. To learn more about her work click here. 

Miriam Chen Lin ‘26 (Psychology and Studio Arts)“The Familiar Yet Esoteric Mind: The Psychological Reasoning of Identity and Mental Health in Undergraduate Students” (Advised by Jennifer Frihauf, Psychology; Jessica Eastburn, Studio Arts; Leandro Glory Damasco Jr., Dance;  and Oliver Bochettaz, English)

Miriam brings together her interests in Psychology and Art in a project on the importance of mental health among students and in our society. Her project will consist of multimedia work that integrates studio art, dance, film, and writing. Each visual piece will be accompanied by a  paper describing the work and analyzing its relations to psychological theories, experiments, and data. Ultimately the project will be exhibited and compiled into a trade book. To learn more about her work click here. 

Charlie DiNapoli ‘24 (Studio Arts) “Seeing in Tongues” (Advised by Ryan Carrington, Studio Art)

Charlie will create a series of 6-10 works in ceramics/mixed media that explore his own religious and emotional experiences, ranging from frustration and anger to boredom and despair. The pieces will be sculpted semi-self-portraits displayed in frames that resemble the out-coves that hold religious figures in traditional settings. Charlie plans to enter these works into juried shows and to prepare for his senior show in the Spring.

Simon Lanzoni ‘24 (Studio Art, Music, and Italian)“Seeing in Tongues” (Advised by Ryan Carrington, Studio Art)

Seeing in Tongues will take the form of an audiovisual installation that includes sculpture and sound to explore how language and perception define an individual’s interpretation of reality. As someone who is bicultural and bilingual, Simon has begun to perceive how language is culture, how reality can be reflected in language, and how language produces ever-changing realities. Simon will create three different 3D works of art along with one greater soundscape to inspire students, faculty, staff, and visitors to create an inclusive future for the arts at SCU and to celebrate the human impulse to create. To learn more about his work click here. 

Natasha Moorjani ‘24 (Music and Political Science)“Choral Music and Justice” (Advised by Scot Hanna-Weir, Music)

Tasha will be composing an original choral work that brings awareness to the legal aspects of social justice by setting to music legal texts, such as Supreme Court opinions or writings by legal scholars. The texts of her choral piece will synthesize the most impactful phrases and pressing ideas from the legal texts, while the medium of choral music will add emotion and emphasis in ways that will allow both the singers and the audience to connect with them. Her project hopes to explore how the arts can be an effective mechanism for social justice and how the emotive qualities of music make it an extremely powerful way to create change.

Madysen Moreno ‘24 (Music and Philosophy)“Heard Her: A Concert Series” (Advised by Teresa McCollough, Music)

Madysen’s concern with the lack of female representation in the music industry drives her fellowship project, an original four-movement concert series showcasing a suite of music composed to explore the phenomenology of woman through sound. Madysen’s composition will proceed through the help of Santa Clara University’s New Music Ensemble and will debut in a live Spring performance.