Bard’s extraordinary faculty are dedicated to the philosophy of teaching. Today and throughout Bard’s history, members of the faculty have effected change in medicine, the arts and letters, international affairs, journalism, scientific research, and education, among other endeavors. These distinguished scholars are advisers as well as instructors: Bard has no graduate teaching assistants. And the average class size of 16 in the Lower College and 12 in the Upper College allows for intimate discussions and one-on-one interaction.
David Bloom ’13 MM ’15. Photo by Bruce Kung
“What brought me to Bard, in a word, was the faculty.”
“To work with Joan Tower, George Tsontakis, and James Bagwell was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I had long followed and admired their work, and then I found out that each of them taught here. It’s easy for musicians to focus only on music, whereas I wanted to have a broader education that would prepare me for a world that requires a more well-rounded base of knowledge and experience.”
—David Bloom ’13 MM ’15
—David Bloom ’13 MM ’15
Faculty News
Ian Buruma’s New Book Stay Alive Reviewed in the Forward
Julia M. Klein writes that Buruma’s work is “at once panoramic and intimate, dispassionate and deeply moving.”
Ian Buruma’s New Book Stay Alive Reviewed in the Forward
Ian Buruma. Photo by Pete Mauney ’93 MFA ’00
The Human Rights Program at Bard is a transdisciplinary program involving such diverse fields as literature, political studies, history, anthropology, economics, film and media, and art history. It emphasizes integrative historical and conceptual investigations, and offers a rigorous background that can inform meaningful practical engagements. The program seeks to orient students in the intellectual tradition of human rights and provide them the resources with which to appreciate and criticize its contemporary status.
Post Date: 03-24-2026
Expansive Survey of Painter Uman Opens at CCS Bard June 2026
The exhibition will trace the evolution of Uman’s prolific painting practice from the intimate portraits she made in the 2000s to the commanding images she creates today.
Expansive Survey of Painter Uman Opens at CCS Bard June 2026
Samaki in the Ocean, 2023. ©Uman. Courtesy of the artist, Nicola Vassell Gallery and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Sarah Muehlbaue
Uman’s art has often been framed through biography: her path as an immigrant and arrival in post-millennium New York as a self-taught artist. In Between shifts the focus toward her motifs and technique, revealing how she transforms a wide range of influences, including memories from her East African childhood, the natural world, and portraiture, into a distinct vocabulary of signs, symbols, and chromatic textures. Through this evolving visual language, Uman creates ambitious compositions that position her as one of the most vital painters working today.
“It has been deeply meaningful to work with an artist as prolific and inventive as Uman at such a pivotal moment in her career,” said curator and Artistic Director of the Hessel Museum of Art Lauren Cornell. “This project reflects CCS Bard’s commitment to artistic experimentation and to presenting ambitious bodies of work with depth and original scholarship.”
The exhibition charts Uman’s artistic practice from the 2010s to the present, beginning with works from the artist’s early years in New York. At the center of the opening gallery is a handmade collapsible kiosk from which Uman first presented her paintings. Painted over and collaged, the structure reflects the resourcefulness and independence that continue to shape her practice. Nearby, a selection of early collages and paintings highlights motifs that have endured throughout her work. Together, these early works foreground a material inventiveness that runs throughout Uman’s practice. Surfaces assembled from canvas, paper, cardboard, and wood reflect her habit of refashioning found materials often salvaged from the streets of New York’s garment district and Chelsea neighborhood. Across these varied supports, Uman develops dynamic geometries of squares, points, curves, splotches, grids, stains, and letterforms that lay the groundwork for a sensorial visual alphabet connecting works throughout the exhibition. This gallery also introduces themes such as landscapes, animals, and portraiture that Uman continues to revisit.
In Between goes on to highlight the early 2020s as a period of particularly prolific creative output. Working in Roseboom, New York, during the COVID-19 pandemic intensified Uman’s focus on material and gestural experimentation, resulting in the creation of more than 160 visually complex works. During this period, she expanded her use of oil sticks, allowing for a more controlled dynamism in the rendering of her symbols and biotic shapes, while also making a decisive shift toward working at a much larger scale. The exhibition highlights this transformative moment in her practice, including her technique of painting with her fingers and her use of color to express story, memory, and geography.
Additional highlights include new and previously unseen works, as well as two murals created specifically for the exhibition that build on Uman’s earlier work in the public realm.
The exhibition concludes with a dedicated focus on Uman’s creative process, bringing together notebook sketches and drawings created alongside the development of her paintings. These materials provide intimate insight into her practice across nearly two decades and reveal recurring motifs that evolve throughout her work, including the circle, a form that has long fascinated the artist and continues to appear in many variations across her paintings.
Also on View
In Between is part of a broader spotlight on artists pushing the possibilities of abstraction and color, and will be complemented by the concurrent presentations of a major retrospective examining the intertwined legacies of Betty Parsons (1900-1982) as a pioneering abstract artist and trailblazing gallerist, alongside the first survey of Navajo/Diné weaver Marilou Schultz.
About Uman
Uman is a multimedia artist who lives and works in upstate New York. She creates lavishly detailed microcosms replete with color, gesture, geometry and evocations of the natural world. Reflecting her experiences growing up across continents and cultures, her vibrant visual vocabulary draws upon memories of East African childhood, rigorous education in traditional Arabic calligraphy, deep engagement with dreams and fascination with kaleidoscopic color. With nods to self-portraiture and fictional topographies, Uman’s works fluidly inhabit a liminal space between abstraction, figuration, and meditative patterning.
Solo exhibitions include I Love You After Everything, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (2025); Uman: After all the things…, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut (2025); Uman: A Fantastic Woman, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland (2025); Darling sweetie, sweetie darling, Hauser and Wirth, London (2024); Uman: I want everything now, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (2023); Goodnight, sweetdreams, Eleni Koroneou, Athens (2022); I hope this finds you well, Fierman, New York (2021); I will sit here and wait for you, Fierman, New York (2019) and Uman, White Columns, New York (2015). Group presentations include the traveling exhibition Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, currently on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2026); 12th SITE SANTA FE, Curated by Cecilia Alemani, New Mexico (2025); The Abstract Future, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2025); The Selves, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (2024); Abstraction, (re)creation, Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2024); Supra Nature, Galerie Anne De Villepoix, Paris, France (2023); Sanctuary, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2020) and A house to die in, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2012).
Exhibition Catalogue
A catalogue published by Monacelli Press will be released in tandem with the opening of Uman: In Between. Featured writers are Lauren Cornell; Omar Farah, Curatorial Assistant at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Amber Musser, Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center; and Roberta Smith, writer and former co-chief art critic of The New York Times.
Exhibition Organization and Credits
Uman: In Between is organized by CCS Bard’s Hessel Museum of Art and curated by Lauren Cornell.
Major support for Uman: In Between is provided by the Bukhman Foundation; the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; Hauser & Wirth; Jill and Peter Kraus; Nicola Vassell Gallery; Speyer Family Collection, New York; and Alexander S. C. Rower & Elan Gentry.
Exhibitions at CCS Bard and the Hessel Museum of Art are made possible with generous support from Lonti Ebers, the Marieluise Hessel Foundation, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the Board of Governors of the Center for Curatorial Studies, the Leadership and Curator’s Councils, and the Center’s Patrons, Supporters, and Friends.
Post Date: 03-23-2026
More News
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Bard College and PEN America Announce the Launch of the Central America Independent Media Archive
Bard College and PEN America Announce the Launch of the Central America Independent Media Archive
Bard College, together with PEN America, is pleased to announce the launch of Central America Independent Media Archive (CAIMA), an initiative to safeguard and preserve independent journalism in Central America through a digital archive accessible to the public. CAIMA was built in partnership with the Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA) team, and is the latest project under the umbrella of Kronika, a joint civic tech project of Bard College and PEN America which builds tools to protect endangered media against state censorship. Both media archives aim to provide journalists, researchers, and historians with secure access to uncensored primary sources from media silenced by authoritarian regimes.Ramón Zamora. Photo by Bernardo Díaz
Founded in response to the escalating criminalization and persecution of journalism in Central America, CAIMA’s mission is to empower journalists, researchers, and civil society actors to deepen investigative work across the region. The collection currently preserves archival publications from 12 media outlets, including the complete editorial history of elPeriódico, a Guatemalan publication internationally recognized for its decades of investigative reporting on corruption and abuse of power.
In 2022, elPeriódico’s founder and director, José Rubén Zamora, was arbitrarily detained after the newspaper published 144 consecutive weeks of investigative reporting on corruption during the administration of former Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei. Following his arrest, the newsroom faced political, legal, and financial pressure, forcing nine journalists into exile. In May 2023, the publication was forced to shut down, cutting off public access to decades of investigative journalism. To protect their father’s legacy and the work of the newsroom, Zamora’s sons, Ramón and José Carlos, secured a complete digital copy of elPeriódico’s archive, an effort that laid the groundwork for CAIMA.
“Our goal is to preserve the first draft of Central America’s history and ensure that the work of courageous journalists is never erased,” said CAIMA coordinator Ramón Zamora. “CAIMA is both a shield against censorship and a tool for journalists and researchers committed to exposing corruption and understanding how power operates across borders.”
The archive is designed to grow by continuously incorporating collections from other independent media organizations across Central America that face censorship, shutdowns, or forced exile. In a region where authoritarian practices increasingly restrict access to information, CAIMA strengthens journalism’s ability to hold power accountable and supports deeper, evidence-based regional analysis. To access CAIMA, please visit elarchivo.media/en
Post Date: 03-23-2026
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Kenneth Stern ’75, Director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, Interviewed by ABC 10News
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A. Sayeeda Moreno Receives 2026 Film Independent Amplifier Fellowship
A. Sayeeda Moreno Receives 2026 Film Independent Amplifier Fellowship
A. Sayeeda Moreno, assistant professor of film/electronic arts at Bard, has been selected as a 2026 Film Independent Amplifier Fellow, one of only six filmmakers chosen nationally from a highly competitive pool. The fellowship will support Moreno’s development of her screenplay into a feature film, Out in the Dunes, a coming-of-age romance set in Provincetown in 1992. The story follows Soledad, a heartbroken romantic who becomes involved in an unexpected passionate affair with Jules, a lesbian artist who challenges her belief in love. The film offers a bold exploration of humanity through its reflection on love, friendship, and the strength and salvation that community can provide.The Amplifier Fellowship, supported by Founding Sponsor Netflix and its Fund for Creative Equity, provides emerging and mid-career Black or African American filmmakers with a $30,000 unrestricted grant and a twelve-month program that provides creative and strategic support to advance a selected project, along with customized mentorship from industry advisors, professional coaching, and financial and business advising.A. Sayeeda Moreno, assistant professor of film/electronic arts. Photo by Francis Guevara
The Film and Electronic Arts Program encourages interest in a wide range of expressive modes in film and electronic arts including animation, narrative and non-narrative filmmaking, documentary, performance, and installation practices. The program emphasizes imaginative engagement and the cultivation of an individual voice that has command over the entire creative process.
Post Date: 03-18-2026
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Bard Faculty Tanya Marcuse and Adriane Colburn Awarded a Marble House Project Residency
Bard Faculty Tanya Marcuse and Adriane Colburn Awarded a Marble House Project Residency
Bard faculty members Tanya Marcuse, associate professor of photography, and Adriane Colburn, artist in residence in Studio Arts, have each been selected for summer residencies at the Marble House Project in Dorset, Vermont. Each year the residency program welcomes approximately fifty artists to participate in a series of three-week sessions. Each session brings together a carefully curated cohort of eight artists working across disciplines that include the visual arts, writing, music, choreography, and performance, in order to foster collaboration, dialogue, and the exchange of ideas.L–R: Tanya Marcuse, associate professor of photography; and Adriane Colburn, artist in residence at Studio Arts.
During her residency, Marcuse will develop a new body of work titled Circle | Cycle, exploring the symbolic and cosmological power of the circle as both subject and structure. Using natural materials gathered from the surrounding landscape, she will construct and alter a single circular assemblage, documenting its evolution through photographs and a looping stop-motion film. Long associated with ideas of wholeness, infinity, and cosmic order, the circle in this project becomes a site where creation and rupture coexist on the same plane. Marcuse will invite fellow artists to contribute locally found materials, creating a collaborative process rooted in place.
While in residence, Colburn will develop Windward, a suite of artworks that explore the resonance of trees increasingly felled by wind and water. Through research on vulnerable tree species across northeastern forests, riparian zones, and urban landscapes, and the climatic pressures that bring them down, her project examines the environmental conditions reshaping contemporary forests and the material possibilities of salvaged wood. Working with arborists, foresters, and rural sawyers, she will recover fallen trees and transform them into lumber and paper pulp as raw material for sculptures, installations, and works on paper. The resulting artworks explore interspecies connectivity, woodcraft traditions, and poetic traces of environmental forces embedded within the wood, illuminating escalating environmental crises and their complex web of cause and effect.
Post Date: 03-17-2026
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“New York colleges can do better by student voters”: Jonathan Becker and Sierra Ford ’26 Pen Op-Ed in Times Union
“New York colleges can do better by student voters”: Jonathan Becker and Sierra Ford ’26 Pen Op-Ed in Times Union
“American democracy is in trouble.” In an op-ed for the Times Union, Jonathan Becker, vice president for academic affairs and director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College, and Sierra Ford ’26, coleader of Election@Bard and president of Bard Student Government, advocate for the passage of Student Voter Empowerment Act, a bill which “seeks to foster informed student electoral participation by requiring New York institutions of higher learning to systematize and expand their engagement with student voters.” After federal encroachment on nonpartisan efforts to engage student voters, Becker and Ford believe that the Student Voter Empowerment Act could serve as a state-level corrective, increasing civic engagement and young voter turnout. “New York’s college students are our country’s future engaged citizens and leaders,” they write. “The Legislature and governor should respond to the current moment by passing the Student Voter Empowerment Act.”L–R: Jonathan Becker and Sierra Ford ’26.
Post Date: 03-17-2026
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Jonathan Becker and Sierra Ford ’26 Discuss the Student Voter Empowerment Act on WAMC’s The Roundtable
Jonathan Becker and Sierra Ford ’26 Discuss the Student Voter Empowerment Act on WAMC’s The Roundtable
“If we believe in the future of our country is in young people, we want to get them involved in the democratic process, and voting is the core expression of democracy,” Jonathan Becker, vice president for academic affairs and director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College, said on WAMC’s The Roundtable. Appearing alongside Sierra Ford ’26, coleader of Election@Bard and president of Bard Student Government, the two discussed the Student Voter Empowerment Act and the challenges facing nonpartisan efforts to increase student participation in democracy. Ford said that young people feel a certain sense of “nihilism” around the state of democracy: “But I want to be very clear that that nihilism is not apathy. That's still a feeling towards democracy. There is a desire to participate, but they’re disenchanted with certain politicians and really turned off by how partisan and how hostile things have become over the course of years.” The Student Voter Empowerment Act, which Becker and Ford have endorsed and hope will pass, would partner with colleges and universities across New York State, distributing voting rights educational materials, upcoming deadlines, information on local candidates, and more. Becker said that it would not be cost prohibitive for institutions to enact these changes. “The question is, are you investing in your future citizens?” he said. “Are you investing in democracy?”Jonathan Becker (left) and Sierra Ford ’26 (right) in the WAMC studio. Photo courtesy WAMC
Post Date: 03-17-2026
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