This annual exhibition presents works related to the Benjamin Menschel Fellowships granted to selected Cooper Union students to travel and further work on projects related to art, architecture, design, and engineering. This year's projects include:

"Las Primeras Lluvias De Mayo | The First Rains Of May," by Ana Hierro A’20, Jessica Martinez A’20, and Christien Vargas A’20, which looks to discover changing attitudes about food consumption and its connection to the land in Puerto Rico. Following Hurricane Maria in September 2017 Puerto Rico started importing 95% of its food.

"On Exchange," by Juan Carlos Javier AR’21, which explores the process of fermentation and how it may be informed by the tools used and the spaces that contain it in Laguna de Bay, the largest lake in the Philippines, on the northern island of Luzon    

“Endurance of a Breathing Archive,” by Danny Polonsky A’20, which examines how modes of archiving, identifying, developing, and framing plant seeds affect the future of those seeds at the Vavilov Institute, a federal genetic research institute in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Nikolai Vavilov, a botanist and geneticist, founded the collection during the Siege of Leningrad, a time when Russia was experiencing famine, and it now holds the world’s largest collection of seeds.

“Building, Dwelling, Thinking,” by Cheung Lun Jeremy Son AR’20 and Shuqing Zhan AR’20, which explores the trajectory of Swiss tradition in the context of its architecture. The project was inspired by the work of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, and his landmark 1951 essay “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” which also supplied the project’s title. 

Opening Reception is Tuesday, January 28 at 6PM.

On view Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11AM - 7PM

Images courtesy of the 2019 Menschel Fellows

View the full Spring 2020 Lectures and Events List.