Sarah Burford, a third-year doctoral student in the History of Art program, spent the summer and fall of 2014 working as a Curatorial Research Fellow for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia on the exhibition Barbara Kasten: Stages (February 4 – August 16, 2015). The first major survey devoted to the artist Barbara Kasten situates her photographs, installations, and a variety of other works within contexts ranging from modernist theater and Bauhaus Constructivism to postmodernism and the California Light and Space movement. During her summer fellowship, supported by Bryn Mawr’s NEH Curatorial Internship Program, Sarah spent her days working with Curator Alex Klein at ICA and in area libraries and museums researching archival materials related to Kasten’s own exhibitions, early twentieth-century theater and photography, mid-century textile and crafts, and contemporary photographic practice to bolster the exhibition’s catalogue essays and interpretive materials. She is the author of the catalogue’s exhibition history and bibliography, and worked this fall to research and compile more than forty years’ worth of material documenting Kasten’s career from the 1970s through the present.

This semester, Sarah will enjoy seeing the final product come together while Barbara Kasten: Stages runs from February 4 – August 16, 2015. She currently works as a Teaching Assistant for introductory art history courses at Bryn Mawr, and with Professor Lisa Saltzman researching German art and visual culture between the World Wars.

Christina Chandler, a first year graduate student in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, spent her winter break excavating at the site of Tell Abraq in the United Arab Emirates with Professor Peter Magee and fellow archaeology students. Tell Abraq is a late prehistoric settlement in the Emirate of Sharjah, UAE, where people lived 4000 years ago and participated in trade across the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean. Though excavating six days a week, Christina and the other students visited various archaeological sites and museums around the UAE, worked with artifacts in archaeological labs, and interacted with an international team of archaeologists. In their free time they explored Dubai and other modern cities.

This semester Christina is back on campus taking a full course load, including graduate seminars on Assyria, Athens, and mortuary practices in antiquity. Additionally, she is studying modern Arabic at Haverford College and Bryn Mawr.

Christina’s participation in the UAE excavation was made possible thanks to The Sharjah Directorate of Archaeology, Government of Sharjah, UAE; The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Bryn Mawr College; The Carus Trust within the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology; and Department funds from the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology.