PARSONS LAUNCHES INTERMEDIA INITIATIVE

New York, August 21, 2009—The School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design has announced its new “Intermedia Initiative” under the directorship of Associate Professor Coco Fusco. This new area of research and public programming will explore developments in the fields of New Genres and New Media and will foster increased cross-disciplinary exchange within Parsons. The Intermedia Initiative will involve faculty, visiting scholars and guest artists whose work engages with photography, time based media, digital arts, contemporary art history and visual culture studies. During its first year, the Intermedia Initiative will sponsor a weekly interdisciplinary artists lecture series, a new transdisciplinary graduate seminar featuring a wide range of guest scholars, a symposium on Performance and Politics in Guatemala, and new undergraduate and graduate studio courses. The principle goal of the Intermedia Initiative will be foment cross-disciplinary exchange among faculty, students and guests and to expand the possibilities for interdisciplinary art practices at Parsons and The New School. Fusco will also convene a working group of faculty from AMT to explore possibilities for expanding interdisciplinary curricular offerings and degree offerings in the future.

“Parsons is pleased that Associate Professor Coco Fusco has agreed to become Director of Intermedia Initiatives,” said Sven Travis, Dean of the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons. “With the new Intermedia Initative, AMT embraces the increasingly interdisciplinary orientation of all schools at Parsons and The New School. We are lucky to have an individual such as Coco already in our midst. I fully support her leadership of Intermedia Initiatives. I could not imagine someone more dynamic and well suited to lead this charge. During her year as Chair of Fine Arts, that program underwent a notable increase in its faculty, an important diversification of curricular offerings in time-based media, and a dramatic rise in MFA student enrollment. She will no doubt bring the same energy and creative thinking to this new initiative.”

For over twenty years, Professor Fusco’s work as an artist, writer and teacher has bridged many disciplines. She is a recent recipient of a Faculty Development Fund Grant from The New School for the creation of a new project in collaboration with professors Michelle Materre Media Studies and Veronica Lawlor in Illustration. As part of her duties as Chair of Parsons Fine Arts Department, Fusco initiated many of the projects that will serve as the foundation for Intermedia Initiatives.

Fusco herself is enthusiastic about the possibilities. “The most exciting changes in contemporary art of the past thirty years have come from the increasing diversity of the field, its locations, its manifestations and its participants. Art is now understood and celebrated as an interdisciplinary endeavor occurring on a global scale. Nonetheless, too many art schools remain wedded to structures that isolate disciplines rather than bringing them into dialogue. I am very pleased that such critical transformations in art can become palpable through the Intermedia Initiative at Parsons.”

About Parsons The New School for Design
Parsons The New School for Design is one of the premier institutions for art and design education. Founded in 1896, is has served as a pioneer in the field for more than a century. Based in New York but active around the world, the school offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the full spectrum of design disciplines. Critical thinking and collaboration are at the heart of a Parsons education. Parsons offers rigorous training that allows for interdisciplinary collaboration across five thematic schools. An integral part of The New School, Parsons builds on the university’s legacy of progressive ideals, scholarship, and pedagogy. Parsons graduates are leaders in their respective fields, with a shared commitment to creatively and critically addressing the complexities of life in the 21st century. For more information, please visit www.parsons.newschool.edu.

###