Eddi, whose real name is Edwin Mera, has photographed more than 10,000 people. His endeavors are fueled by a desire to imbue people’s days with kindness and joy, he said. 

“I hope kindness is one, and [another is to] be able to actually share that we are humans, because something that’s been getting lost is our values,” said Eddi. “I feel like, even when you just walk towards people and you see them, you should be able to at least say ‘hi.’”

In one of his videos, Eddi stops Luis Tomás Orozco Vaca ’26 on Alexander Walk. Complimenting his jacket, Eddi asks to take his photo, to which Luis Tomás says that he’s “not photogenic.” Luis Tomás poses naturally as Eddi frames his composition.

By the end of the exchange, Eddi asks Luis Tomás: ‘What makes you happy?’ Luis Tomás responds that “good habits” like sleeping eight hours a night contribute to this overall happiness.

Other people have answered “this idea of leaving a legacy”, “spontaneous moments of repose” and “shopping.”

“I take pictures of people, because I want to portray the way I see people through my eyes and showcase them their potential and boost their confidence,” said Eddi.

The music producer-turned-photographer left home, Ibarra, Ecuador, at 15, boarded a flight to the U.S. with his older sister and enrolled at East Haven High School. The two of them arrived in Connecticut alone, without their parents. At the time, Eddi didn’t even know English.  

He described his childhood in Ecuador as marked by political unrest and financial instability. His mother was a singer, and while she was popular locally, she urged him not to pursue the arts. Despite his mother’s wishes, Eddi makes art anyway. Throughout high school, he created tracks and experimented with a wide range of genres, from house music to R&B to pop.

One of his early successes was a collaboration with Angela Davis, a Chicago-based singer-songwriter. Their collaboration was entirely virtual, and he credits his social media presence for providing him with this opportunity.

Later, he contributed music to a short film “Temp” that premiered at Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas in downtown New Haven in 2010.

He encountered photography, which has become his main medium, he said “by mistake.”

At first, it was simply a solution: Eddi needed promotional shots for his music but wasn’t satisfied with the work other photographers produced. So, he bought an iPhone 7 Plus and started taking photos of his own.

“People in the community started noticing,” he says. 

Before long, someone asked if he could take pictures and videos at their daughter’s birthday party. That first project paid $200.

While he’s largely self-taught, Eddi has invested in online courses in marketing and business. He now offers content creation services to businesses.

“Eddi’s the greatest,” said Jerre Adams, a New Haven local, friend and client. “He’s a professional, a hard worker and the photos he took for me were beautiful.” 

Today, Eddi has swapped out his iPhone 7 Plus for a Canon RX. His Instagram account now has over 15,600 followers on Instagram, and he runs a growing freelance business offering portraits, event coverage and branded content.

His projects range from graduation shoots for Yale students to headshots for professionals to projects for the Cambria Hotel in downtown New Haven.

According to Eddi, it’s not the camera that matters, but the composition and the story each photo tells. On campus, many students recognize him from Instagram reels or TikTok videos; his content features spontaneous street portraits and conversations.

“He was super nice, and I think it’s cool how he engages with students and New Haven,” said Constantine Polychronopoulos ’25, founder of Crew Dog, who met Eddi over coffee.

Eddi has found that when he asks people what makes them happy, many aren’t sure how to respond. For some, he said, it’s the first time they’ve ever really considered the question — and that moment of reflection can be meaningful.

Although many assume he’s extroverted, Eddi said that it takes effort to approach strangers. It doesn’t come naturally, said Eddi.  But he continues to draw on values from his upbringing in Ecuador, where greeting others, especially elders, is an act of respect.

For him, a “hello” is a way to acknowledge someone’s presence, a small reminder of our shared humanity.

As for Eddi’s answer to the question, it’s simple. It’s making people around him feel appreciated. 

Eddi’s content can be accessed on social media platforms at @eddimofficial.

The post Meet Eddi — who has taken photos of more than 10,000 people in Yale and New Haven appeared first on Yale Daily News.

From Slavic music and customer service to auto-consumption and land reform laws, these creatives integrate different, personal experiences with their work in all shapes and forms.

THISBE WU ’26: Inspiration is everywhere — from portraits to Slavic music to Alice Neel. 

Comic books were Thisbe Wu’s ’26 first source of inspiration. As a child, she was drawn to creativity in all forms, whether it be performances, galleries, films or museums. Having experimented with portraiture, oil painting and sculptures, she now considers herself a printmaker.

She’s always been drawn to capturing the people around her, she said. Her favorite piece — a portrait that she painted as a high school senior of her dad and his brother as children — is a testament to this love of representing friends and family and her art.

Growing up in New York City, the proportions of a face she learned to draw were always based on white examples. She found “joy” in painting family members and learning how to “truthfully and authentically” portray people who look like her, both in a technical sense and in an emotional sense.

Over spring break, Thisbe visited the National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila over spring break and saw portraits of Filipinos, painted by Filipinos in a “Western 19th century style.” Looking at the way these artists had rendered the Asian faces, she felt them working through the same technical challenges of light and shadow. 

“It was really magical to see this history and lineage and tradition of painting that I hadn’t encountered before,” said Thisbe. “And see Asian faces being represented so beautifully and with such care and respect when a lot of the paintings of Asian people from that era that are by Western artists are really orientalist.”

While her Chinese heritage informs Thisbe’s art, it’s not a defining feature of her work. At a Balkan camp in upstate New York last summer, she leant the doumbek and tambura. Now, on campus, her role as director of the Yale Slavic Chorus has become an important part of her life — and her art. 

Music is a huge source of inspiration for Thisbe. Her taste ranges from Mozart to The Cure to The Cranberries. Specifically, she’s been a fan of Mitsuko Uchida since high school. 

“There are videos of Mitsuko online, but seeing it in real life was really, really incredible,” said Thisbe, recounting a concert experience. “She has a really unconventional way of conducting. She doesn’t give a beat pattern. It’s all about the push and pull of the sound and the emotion of the sound and the tension and release.”

CLAIRE CHEY ART ’25: Sex with ghosts and other artistic provocations

Claire paints bodies. She thinks about consumption, self-consumption, pleasure, trauma and dreams. 

Before coming to Yale, Claire spent four years trying to “make it” as an artist in Korea. She worked images of food, comparing that to the sexualization and consumption of women, often dealing with violent images.

During her first exhibit at a gallery-café in Seoul, she displayed two large paintings of women’s bodies. Customers walked out after seeing her work, considered “too provocative and sexual.” The paintings were soon covered with curtains.

At her first solo show, a professor from a well-known Korean art school walked out when she explained that a painting was about sexual violence and UTIs. 

Now at Yale, Claire feels free to take her work in new directions and push boundaries without fear of immediate judgment. She’s become more interested in what happens within and how trauma functions to shape desires.

“As a woman, when you’re taught that your body is up for consumption, how do you deal with that? How do you live with yourself when you’re alone? Or how do you find desire?” said Claire. “And I know that’s going to be a tricky murky area, but I think that’s where my interest is, kind of deconstructing that.”

With a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and Gender Studies, Claire thinks about her personal experiences, not as a singular experience, but as part of a wider story, much like Tracy Emin, she said. Emin’s work is currently on display at the Yale Center for British Art. Claire’s artistic inspirations also include Marlene Dumas, Miriam Cahn and Tala Madani.

While she used to work with extensions of her own body, she’s expanded into the bodies of older women, including that of her mother and of animals.

She’s also become interested in Korean ghost stories. In particular, the phenomenon of “guijup,” in which people claim to have sexual encounters with ghosts, caught her attention. To Claire, this phenomenon reflects a deeper generational trauma that Korean society has never fully reckoned with, as well as the cultural taboo around talking openly about sex.

Though she remains hesitant to display work in Korea in the future, she’s hopeful that the culture might shift.

KAI CHEN ’26: The history of hair, domesticity and androgyny captured through the lens 

Behind the counter of his parent’s Chinese takeout restaurant in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 5-year-old Kai would nap on stacks of Coca-Cola crates as his parents’ served customers. The restaurant became their home.

Once old enough, they would help with taking orders and handing out food, shuttling between English with customers and Mandarin with his parents.

As a shy kid, customer service didn’t come naturally to Kai, and the performance of customer service led them to bigger questions. In their art, Kai thinks of the performativity of surfaces and the idea of “welding performance as a powerful exertion of power.”

Art was always an insular activity for Kai. Their earliest art education came from surfing Wikipedia and watching YouTube videos. Through this, they discovered Félix Gonzélez-Torres, specifically the piece “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.),” which opened their understanding of what art could be, they said. 

Recently, Kai has been interested in domestic scenes and the artifice of photography. Focusing on the distortion of the lens, their most recent project photographs his parents in everyday moments — chopping vegetables, playing Mahjong, even just lying around the house.

The intersectionality of being queer and Asian American is reflected in Kai’s art. Inspired by Agnes Denes gridded drawings, they’ve been thinking about hair as a line, lineage and genetic material, familial connection.

“Hair’s often this racialized, gendered thing, right?” Kai said. “My parents kind of don’t like my long hair but the hair is also part of my queerness.”

In a recent series, Kai focuses on the transcription of a photograph into a drawing or painting, with the grid facilitating this transduction process. Shades of purple are the primary color used in this series, said Kai, as they feel that this color has some proximity to androgyny.

Looking forward, they are excited to spend their summer at the Yale Norfolk School of Art and live in a cottage at the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate — which Kai described as an almost “mythical place” with “summer camp vibes.” They look forward to making work outside of classes, as well as the creative freedom that comes with that self-driven process.

ARIEL KIM ’26: $22 sketchbook and blue ballpoint pen conveys catharsis and immediacy 

Ariel Kim ’26 spent part of her childhood in Jinju, South Korea and lived with her grandparents. There, she grew an interest in cicadas, what she described as a “really loud type of insect” abundantly found in Jinju.  Her fascination in the sounds of cicadas found its way into her art during her freshman year at Yale. 

“I was obsessed with the cicada life cycle,” she said. “They live underground for so long, then emerge for just a few weeks and cry out. There’s something so poetic about that.”

As part of a Creative and Performing Arts exhibit in February 2025, titled “March Blue Period: Life in Ballpoint,” she included a number of pieces with cicada motifs. This exhibit was particularly meaningful for Ariel – as it marked the end of an art block that had lasted for years.

Drawing on the first page of her “overpriced” blue sketchbook from Hull’s, after a long break from drawing, Ariel said, she felt this “this massive sense of catharsis.” Since then, she’s been drawing almost every day.

Her favorite piece from the exhibit, as shown above, came from a place of immediacy and raw emotion. 

“If you can see here, the smudges are from my palm, or you see  the other side, how it digs into the paper,” Ariel said. “That’s from other sketches I did, pages after pages of it, or just also wanting to escape from that place, truly off the page.”

She plans to travel across Japan and Korea this summer for her creative thesis project — a graphic novel based on an intergenerational story that touches on Japanese occupation and the Korean War. Then, she will return to the U.S. and research more about the Asian American diaspora. 

Her dad grew up in Brooklyn and the Bronx, during a time in which few Asian Americans lived there. According to Ariel, she hopes to look at the history of segregation through an Asian American lens and tie these stories together in a part-historical, part-fictional graphic novel.

Alongside her thesis project, Ariel has been planning a fabric arts installation which connects ideas of masculinity and meat consumption together. The project highlights how the subjugation of animals parallels the oppression of women and minorities.

Ariel chose to major in Anthropology, not despite her interest in art, but because of it. To Ariel, a canvas and an empty Google Doc page are similar in multiple ways – both begin completely blank and you begin to fill it with your lived experiences and what you’ve been learning.

PURVAI RAI MFA ’25: Art as a lifestyle

Purvai Rai MFA ’25 spent two years traveling across Punjab, India — following rivers from their source to the India-Pakistan border, studying crop cycles and talking to local farmers about land reform laws.

Growing up in Delhi, the political heart of India, Purvai said that she had a front-row seat to social change. She loved making things — painting, documenting, experimenting — but just creating for creativity’s sake wasn’t enough for her. Purvai was determined to create art with a purpose, work that addresses  questions of policy and activism.

Her family is no stranger to witnessing and recording political shifts. Her father worked as a photojournalist, capturing scenes of upheaval and community, while her mother, a conservation architect, taught Purvai how politics and space could intersect, said Purvai.

“From a really young age, I was going to exhibitions, seeing protests, and realizing that art could speak about larger issues,” said Purvai. 

This motivated her to spend time working in her ancestral village in Punjab with farmers — learning of their personal interests, struggles and histories. 

From her time with them, she learned about the 1976 Urban Land Ceiling Act, a policy intended to equalize property ownership, and its unintended consequences. Some families gained land but others lost jobs, while landlords no longer felt responsible for the entire village’s welfare, said Purvai. 

‘It’s not as simple as ‘feudalism was bad and capitalism is good,’” she said. “The social networks within those systems matter. And for many people on the ground, it’s never just about the policy alone.’

Purvai hopes to contain this complexity.  

A mixed media artist, Purvai has used locally sourced cotton fabrics to create installations made of textiles, referencing the farmland’s own resources. She’s experimented with rice – red, black, genetically modified varieties – to comment on how climate change, capitalism and tradition all collide in the fields of Punjab. Even the tiles from her family’s ancestral home show up in her work. 

Purvai was the 2024 Artist in Residence at the Henry Moore Foundation.

ADITYA DAS ’27: Merging computer science and creative design
Aditya Das ’27 picked up fine art as a hobby over COVID-19 quarantine. Growing up as a STEM student, art became his creative outlet. During his first year at Yale, Aditya enrolled in introductory design class “Art 132” with Professor van Assen on a whim and soon realized that he could combine his love for structure with creativity through the Computing and the Arts major. Now, he’s the co-president of Design at Yale.

According to Aditya, the idea of creating for a specific function — whether it’s a logo, a poster or a promotional piece — feels like blending creativity with problem-solving. Creating art through programming didn’t feel restrictive for Aditya; rather, it added cohesiveness to his work, which he describes as “all over the place.”

In a class project for his introductory design class, he had to design a magazine or brochure advertising a public space. So, he chose to focus on the Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas, which closed in 2023. 

He designed a magazine that could fold into a three-dimensional popcorn box. This project was a turning point for Aditya; it helped him realize all that he could do with design. 

Aditya reflected on his upbringing as an Indian-American. He said that when he first began studying design in a classroom setting, much of the content was drawn from the Western canon: Swiss modernism, typefaces from European foundries and classic theories about “crystal goblet” design.  

Surprised to learn that an Indian type-foundry had produced many of the fonts used day-to-day, Aditya said that he was considering the possibility of Indian design elements in Western work. 

Still, he grapples with the nuances of being an Indian American designer, unsure if he can speak authentically on behalf of a culture he only partially represents, said Aditya.

“Because I think when I first started learning design, and here in class, everything I learned was from the West, and everything I did was for the West,” said Aditya. “I didn’t really even know how to incorporate Indian iconography motifs, or design, or like Indian based design into it, because I didn’t really know even what that looked like, or how to draw upon what I’ve seen.” 

On Asian-ness in Art
The six artists engage with their Asian-ness in similar and different ways.

Whereas Claire pushes against the restrictions of Korean cultural taboos, Purvai’s art is largely centered around the storied history of her ancestral village in Punjab.

For Aditya, Indian iconography and motifs seem more difficult to claim as ‘his own,’ while Kai’s allusions to the Chinese immigrant experience are based largely on his upbringing, working at his parents’ takeout restaurant.

Similarly, Ariel and Thisbe — two artists who have initially learned art through a Western-centric lens — are teaching themselves new ways of rendering light, shape and shadow as they depict faces and bodies of their community.

The South Asian Youth Initiative displayed “Reclaiming Roots” at the Afro-American Cultural Center from April 2 to April 7, 2025 – an exhibit curated by Nithya Guthikonda ’26.

The post A constellation of Asian American artists at Yale  appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Kim left Skowhegan in tears for graduate school in St. Louis; after a semester, he moved to New York to be with Sigal. Today, the two work together as Yale School of Art instructors, as well as co-directors of the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art — an intensive six-week undergraduate visual art program for rising seniors.

“We’re always in each other’s studio and asking each other what we think about each other’s work,” said Sigal. “On a conceptual level, on a content level, I feel like Kim and I are always talking, whether it’s in the studio or just over dinner.”

Both impressive artists in their own right, Kim is known for his abstract, almost sublime works, while Sigal engages with architecture and space in her multimedia works. Both artists have exhibited at the Whitney Biennial and museums and galleries around the world.

While different, their methods allow them to bring their unique perspectives to mentorship at both Norfolk and Skowhegan, where they continued to return in various capacities.

While their artwork remains relatively separate, the couple collaborates mostly through teaching.

Their history of studying together nearly forty years ago informs how they make decisions and operate at the Norfolk School, now on the other side of the student-teacher dynamic.

Both Sigal and Kim emphasized their differing teaching styles. Sigal opts for a more direct, “tough-love” approach, similar to her mentors’ approach when she studied at Yale. Kim, however, chooses a more vulnerable approach — sharing personal experiences with students.

The two often work separately on their creative projects. Despite being married, they said, their distinct styles and preferences are not necessarily conducive to collaborative endeavors. They tried creating together early on in the relationship; what ensued were separate careers.

“It’s a pretty private process of making art for both of us. I think we’re happy to share each other’s process pretty often as we are making work in our studio,” Kim said. “I think we rely on each other a lot to validate what’s good enough for other people to see and experience.” 

The two have led Norfolk for six consecutive summers, directing and mentoring both teaching fellows and students who attend the summer program. The two spoke about the familial dynamic and conviviality that surrounds the experience, which blooms from the entire cohort sharing a home for the entire duration.

During their summers, in addition to teaching and attending the classes of their teaching fellows, Sigal and Kim enjoy swimming in the lake at Norfolk and playing Go with each other daily.

“I feel like my sense of color and observation and refraction of light and the kind of gravityless feeling and the anxiety of being in water and experiencing sky and the kind of the bottomlessness of the ocean and marine mammals,” Sigal said. “I feel like both of us share that experience in our work as references.” 

The Norfolk School recently announced the students nominated to attend their summer program; out of these nominations, one finalist from Yale College will be announced in March.

This year, the selection process for nominees has changed. Before, students were nominated by their professors; now, they are encouraged to submit a portfolio anonymously that professors vote on.

“It felt a lot more equitable,” said Kai Chen ’26, one of the nominated students. “I think sometimes sophomores and first-years take intro classes taught by lecturers that might only have a one or two-year contract with the school of art. You don’t tend to meet the tenured professors until junior year.”

Kim and Sigal plan to return to the Norfolk School of Art for another summer of teaching, 

learning and meeting the new cohort of students and teaching fellows.

The Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art is located on the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk. 

The post Can you imagine working with your spouse? These two Yale School of Art instructors do appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The works on view explored animals in East Asian art, with a focus on the 12 zodiac signs. In another section of the gallery, visitors could see objects — including paintings, metalwork, ceramics and a tapestry — that illustrate literary themes of West and South Asian culture.

“It’s laid out in a way that allows you to immerse yourself in the time and place of the art being shown,” said Eston Kallins ’28. “I think the layout of the space applies a peaceful sentiment that complements the art.”

Curators intentionally limited the display to a select number of works and, arranging them in a sparse layout that draws attention to each piece’s distinctive character. 

The announcement of the exhibit coincided with the 2025 Lunar New Year, which accounts for the emphasis of the new exhibit on zodiac signs and their symbolic presence within art spanning across Asia. 

The YUAG’s permanent collection of Asian art contains around 8,000 works, but only a few select objects are on display at any given time. Because of conservation requirements, all ancient paintings and textiles in this collection are rotated every six months. 

Each installation rotation falls under a certain theme, so as to put works in dialogue with one another.

The pigments and the paper are light-sensitive and may fade, which prevents objects from being on view for too long. Curatorial decisions factor in how long an object has been out of view and what storylines can be developed from the object. 

This installation was framed around two distinct themes: first, the 12 Eastern zodiac animals and second, East and West Asian literature. 

The gallery recently acquired Ganjavi Nizami’s “Bahram Gur Visits the Sandalwood Pavilion from the Seven Portraits (Haft Peykar),” which was displayed in the exhibit. This object — composed of opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper — hails from Iran during the Safavid Period.

Leidy said that because “there’s such a strong literary basis to both West Asian and Indian painting,” the installation also involved visual depictions of literary themes. 

The exhibit also featured pieces from Xu Beihong and Konoshima Ōkoku that highlight the symbolic presence of zodiac signs in Asian art. 

“I’ve known about zodiac signs but have never really understood much about the background or how it’s explored through into art so this exhibition is super interesting,” said Maria Goncalves ’28. “I especially love how, when you look closely at the dragon with a crystal ball, you can almost see a panoramic view of the installation through the crystal ball. ”  

The pieces often differ in period and subject, allowing museum visitors to consider the exhibit’s uniting themes and their evolution over time.

The exhibit deliberately interacts with the space, separating the literary excerpts from the rest of the gallery. The positioning of the works invites attendants to circle through the multimedia collections before exploring the rest of the Asian Art wing of the museum. 

Along with pieces from seminal works of West and South Asian literary culture, the exhibit also showcases various ceramic pieces ranging from small, previous netsuke to various pieces of household glassware. 

The exhibit is on view until May 2025.

The post YUAG showcases ancient texts and Eastern Zodiacs installation appeared first on Yale Daily News.

What resulted was a joint movie night event alongside the Dramat to raise funds for the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund. 

“As amazing as it would have been to pack the El Capitan Theatre and raise $1 million, gathering some high-quality humans in Silliflicks and raising $129 is still awesome in my book,” said Sparnicht. “Every dollar counts, and it warms my heart to know that busy college students on the other side of the country still care.” 

The Wildfire Recovery Fund was chosen because of its well-established network in Los Angeles, which ensures that donations would go toward families most severely and directly affected by the destruction. Donations came from ticket contributions — suggested at $5 per person — as well as the sale of popcorn, soda and candy throughout the event.

Cinemat and Dramat, while sharing a natural overlap in their artistic pursuits, rarely organize events together and typically offer separate programming. According to Julia Weston ’28, director of education for the Cinemat, this fundraiser provided an opportunity to explore common ground and work toward building a more collaborative relationship between the two organizations. 

While this event marked the first time that the two groups had co-organized a philanthropic event, members of both groups hope that it will not be the last.

“We’re two student organizations that have strong ties to Los Angeles and we thought it was an important cause to help out and unite our communities,” said Florence Barillas ’27, the Cinemat secretary. 

While fundraising was the primary goal of this event, the night also served as a reminder of film and theatre’s abilities to bring people together around pressing real-world issues. 

The two groups decided to screen “La La Land” because it struck the right balance between theater and film — fitting for the nature of their collaboration. As a musical, it naturally appeals to both groups, said Sparnicht, which made it an easy choice for a shared screening.

But beyond that, the two organizations settled on the musical-romance-comedy film due to it taking place in Los Angeles. In fact, according to Sparnicht, the film was a pertinent way to remind people why the city matters. 

In the film, Los Angeles isn’t just a backdrop — it’s a character in its own right. Choosing this film wasn’t about asking people to care about the fires; it was about reminding them why they already do.

For many involved in the Cinemat and Dramat, Los Angeles is more than just a setting for films — it’s their home and a potential career destination. That personal connection makes the cause feel even more urgent, said Barillas.

“It’s an industry that affects a lot of us directly as people aspiring to work in film and theater. It’s definitely very close to home, but we’re excited to navigate this with joy and fun at the same time,” said Weston. 

Organizers acknowledged that global crises might feel distant at a college campus and said that while many students cared about the fires, they might not have known what they could do to help. By creating a low-barrier way to help out — just showing up to watch a film — the two organizations said that they hoped to make it easier for students to contribute.

As of Jan. 31., the L.A. wildfires have been fully contained. 

The post Yale film and theater groups join forces for L.A. fire relief fundraiser appeared first on Yale Daily News.

On Jan. 13, Yale Visual Artists installed the student exhibition “Re-Presenting Ourselves” at the Schwarzman Center Well Gallery. The mural displays 27 distinct pieces superimposed onto large black and white photographs of Old Campus, Beinecke Plaza and Cross Campus — communal spaces on campus. 

“Each visual is an attempt to introduce ourselves to Yale once again, but in a more ‘us’ way,” said Davianna Inirio ’27. “To figure out, ‘well, what is that one thing, feeling, or visual, that makes me feel most like me and that which most people don’t often get to see?’”

Many of the group’s members were drawn to capturing their personal reflections of adjustment to life at Yale. In candid expressions, the artists explore ways to weave cultural imagery into each piece — through large-scale self-portraits, subtle nods to inherited family customs and nostalgic visuals that evoke home. 

The murals showcase parts of themselves that are often unseen and unspoken about in initial social encounters. 

The result is a collaborative piece that reflects the group’s shared experiences while displaying the individuality of each artist. The works seem to defy realism in favor of creativity and self-expression.

In Inirio’s work, illustrated figures of herself appear like stickers peeling off the surface of various campus sites. On one face of the mural, Inirio swings on an orange hammock from the branch of a tree in Beinecke Plaza. 

Inirio elaborated on the thematic importance of stickers and how she often feels like a sticker. She is peeled and placed in new environments and contexts, but carries with her fundamental elements of herself. 

In her artwork for the mural, she was inspired by fragments of home, which influence the way she perceives the world “no matter how large or powerful the institution, no matter how daunting and scary it may appear.” 

“And so these stickers slowly peel off on their edges, perhaps insinuating that Yale won’t be a setting in which I stay for long or perhaps insinuating that I am still adjusting and being ‘stuck onto’ the surface. They will always appear to be malleable and yet always present the same warmth from home,” said Inirio. 

According to YVA, the Schwarzman Center contacted the arts organization last year and proposed a collaboration. Following these plans, YVA considered how to connect a bunch of different styles, stories, identities and works into one cohesive piece. 

The curated exhibition represented a multiplicity of artists and styles, which speaks to YVA’s broader vision of unifying and connecting creatives at Yale. The mural encourages viewers to pause and look closer — not just at the art itself, but at the stories and individuals behind each piece. 

Positioned in the middle of the Schwarzman Underground, the exhibition is designed to be approachable and viewable to all.  

“Re-presenting Ourselves” also underscores a larger mission for YVA: to make art accessible and enjoyable for all students, regardless of background or major. 

According to YVA students, the visual arts scene at Yale can oftentimes be largely individualistic, exclusive or time-intensive. YVA hopes to offer students a low-stakes and collaborative outlet to explore their creative impulses without enrolling in art courses. 

The group’s regular activities range from selling prints and hosting casual watercolor evenings to organizing exhibitions and laid-back painting picnics. In doing so, they introduce an inclusive dimension to art at Yale, welcoming anyone eager to dive into creative work — whether or not they’re studying art formally. 

“I think what makes YVA really impactful is our ability to reach across various visual arts communities in the Yale undergraduate sphere and connect majors and non-majors,” said Kamini Purushothaman ’27, who is a staff reporter for the News.  

YVA encourages artists from a range of backgrounds and academic interests who share a passion for any forms of visual expression — whether it be 3D modelling, charcoal sketching or creating digital art. Welcoming anyone who is looking for a creative outlet, YVA has curated a space that values imagination above formal experience. 

At its core, “Re-presenting Ourselves” is as much about forging connections as it is about artistic expression. For many artists, the mural became an excuse to meet other creative minds on campus, forming a community that extended beyond the confines of the project. 

“[The pieces on display] all look very whimsical and imaginative,” Katelyn Wang ’27 said. “You know, we had someone do a Greco Roman sculpture, someone was riding in a paper airplane. They’re all very unrealistic but fun, imaginable, whimsical, fantastical.”

The Schwarzman Center is located at 168 Grove St.

The post In Schwarzman collaboration, Yale Visual Artists “re-present” themselves with a look back at freshman year  appeared first on Yale Daily News.

This concern was at the heart of Yale World Fellow Leon McCarron’s lecture on Monday. Drawing from his book, “Wounded Tigris: A River Journey Through the Cradle of Civilization,” McCarron recounted his expedition along the Tigris River, exploring its profound historical significance in Mesopotamia and the mounting environmental and geopolitical threats it faces today. 

“I want to show that our life is determined by the perceptions that we set out with and by the room that we have to try and change those,” said McCarron. “I see my role as a writer and journalist in large part to try and narrow that gap between the preconceptions we have, the misconceptions of a place and the reality of what that might be”

McCarron highlighted the Tigris River’s role in human history. He described how early hunter-gatherers settled along the river’s fertile banks, leading to the birth of the world’s first cities and civilizations like Sumer and Babylon. 

Despite this rich heritage, McCarron said that contemporary perceptions of Iraq are overshadowed by recent conflicts and turmoil. He emphasized that the country’s historical contributions are often forgotten and urged the audience to recognize Iraq’s place in human history.

“From those early civilizations, we have the first written word carved into clay tablets. We have the first universities. It’s where the first beer was brewed. It’s where the first love song was written,” said McCarron. 

During his journey, McCarron said he witnessed the environmental degradation afflicting the Tigris. He painted a dire picture of the Tigris’ future, citing reduced water levels, increased pollution and the threat of desertification. He warned that the river might not reach the Gulf by 2040 if current trends continue. 

He saw firsthand the impact of massive dam projects like Turkey’s Ilisu Dam. The construction of this dam has led to the flooding of historic sites, including the ancient town of Hasankeyf, which was once one of the longest continually inhabited places on Earth and now is submerged under the dam’s reservoir.

“Hasankeyf was a central point on one of the strands of the Silk Roads,” McCarron said, showing images of the town before and after it was submerged. “Eighty percent of the city was flooded, and with it, a wealth of cultural heritage.”

Near the river’s source, he came across illegal gravel mining operations that disrupt the river’s ecosystem. These small-scale but widespread activities extract materials from the riverbed for use in construction, causing significant ecological damage that is hard to regulate. 

Another pressing environmental concern McCarron highlighted is the precarious state of the Mosul Dam in Iraq. The dam was constructed on soluble rock, making its foundation unstable, and huge cavities are forming under the rock, which require constant monitoring. According to McCarron, if maintenance were to pause even briefly, the dam could fail, unleashing a catastrophic flood that would devastate downstream cities, including Mosul and Baghdad. 

“I hope we come out of this with some action items after we learn all this. What can we do as students, practitioners, teachers, parents, at any level?” Ayaisha Alsaedi ’27 said. 

Despite the sobering realities he described, McCarron offered a glimmer of hope. He spoke of the young environmental activists he met, whose determination inspired cautious optimism, emphasizing that, while the situation is dire, it is not without solutions. Improved water management practices, modernization of agricultural techniques and international cooperation on water sharing could alleviate some of the pressures on the Tigris, he said. 

The journey also brought McCarron into contact with the local communities along the river. In Iraq, he spent time with young soldiers stationed along the Tigris. Many of these men joined the military not out of patriotism, but due to the lack of employment opportunities in a country still grappling with the aftermath of war and instability. 

McCarron shared stories of soldiers he met who harbored dreams of becoming chefs, engineers or even social media influencers but felt trapped by their circumstances. 

“When you are humble and you go with your backpack, they share very intimate and deep thoughts, which is why this approach is so valuable,” Anna Biriukova, a 2024 Yale World Fellow, said. 

The MENA Cultural Community is located on 305 Crown Street. 

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Originally a specialist in miniature paintings, Sikander discussed her shift into the realm of sculpture. Though much of Sikander’s work engages with history, she’s wary of making art that glorifies it. Sikander calls her work an “anti-monument.” 

“And I’d always called it an anti-monument, but because it was always small works on paper, nobody would use that language.”

Sikander relocated to the U.S. from Lahore, Pakistan, to pursue an MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in the early 1990s. While working on a 2001 exhibition at the Morgan Library, she recognized a pressing limitation of her art: compared to paintings on canvas or sculptures, works on paper seldom saw the light of public display and were often confined to storage. 

This encouraged Sikander to seek platforms beyond those offered by traditional institutions. Instead, she was determined to have her art engage directly with the public, outside the confines of galleries and museums. 

In the U.S., she became increasingly aware of her tokenization as a South Asian visual artist in what she described as America’s “black-and-white” culture. This realization propelled her to find alternative forms of representation.   

She asked herself, “How do I get out of this situation and find ways to put my work outside the institutional sort of systems or structures of the gallery or the institution like a museum?”

Sikander found the answer to this question when she walked out onto the streets of Manhattan and saw a vacant plinth on the roof of the courthouse of the Appellate Division of the First Department of the New York State Supreme Court, where a sculpture of Byzantine emperor Justinian once stood. 

She soon replaced this empty space with her own sculpture: an eight-foot bronze sculpture, titled “NOW.” This work was part of her multimedia exhibition “Havah…to breathe, air, life,” which features another sculpture, “Witness,” located at Madison Square Park. 

An eighteen-foot-tall golden female figure, “Witness” flaunts limbs that resemble intertwined roots. She appears untethered, suspended in the air, defying permanence. 

“I was impressed when seeing the public sculptures by, firstly, her lyrical, two-dimensional style and three-dimensionality, monumentally so. Secondly, by the depth and formal dialogue that she presented across a busy Manhattan street.” said Kymberly N. Pinder, dean of the Yale School of Art. 

Since its creation in 2023, “Witness” has been at the center of critical acclaim — and public outcry. 

In February 2024, “Witness” moved to the University of Houston, where it became embroiled in controversy when a major anti-abortion organization in Texas alleged that it promoted pro-choice imagery and paid homage to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said Sikander during the event. 

Facing pressure, the University of Houston canceled the opening and the artist talk, without providing an explanation to students. Such silence created room for misinformation and confusion, said Sikander. 

It wasn’t until weeks later that signage with additional information about the sculpture was finally placed next to the piece.

“When you’re thinking in terms of public art, where people are going to see things without deliberately choosing to go to a museum, you need to think about how to make contact, and in what form, since the initial impulse is between the artist and the person,” said Harrington.

The sculpture would later be defaced when, in July 2024, a man climbed the 18-foot sculpture and decapitated its head with a hammer. 

During her talk, Sikander explained how “Witness” was, indeed, a nod to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as well as previous female Supreme Court Justices. She pointed out  the lace collar on the sculpture as a reference to the accessories Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor — the first female Supreme Court Justice — had added to the traditional black judicial robe. 

According to Sikander, the figure’s braided hair draws from African and Asian artistic traditions. The hair, shaped like ram’s horns, symbolizes resilience and wisdom, she said. The face of the sculpture, now-destroyed, was intended to be a composite of the faces of radical female poets, embodying a collective voice.

The artist continued and said that the vandalism was more than just an assault on the sculpture; it was an attack on the concepts of personal freedoms, expression and the visibility and voice of women. 

She chose not to repair the damage, wanting to leave the sculpture in its beheaded state as a visible reminder of the violence that marks its history. 

“I believe that rather than censoring or destroying art, we should embrace its ability to challenge our perspectives, to see beyond binaries, to engage with the complexities of identity, power and history,” said Sikander. “Witness’ is a testament to that challenge, and its defacement only strengthens its message.” 

The Yale University Art Gallery is located at 1111 Chapel St.

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Edgewell received The SmartWay Excellence Award, which highlights the top environmental performers out of over 4,000 shipping companies, on Sept. 24. The company was one of 18 of SmartWay’s Partners recognized with this distinction.

“Our company’s purpose — make useful things joyful — and our sustainability vision go hand in hand,” Paul Hibbert, the chief supply chain officer, said. “We believe in innovating solutions, embracing opportunities and embedding practices throughout our operations and supply chain that move us forward on our sustainability journey.”

At Edgewell, sustainability is not just a department — it’s the heartbeat of the entire operation. From the boardroom to the packaging facilities, the retailer is dedicated to integrating sustainable practices into every aspect of their production and transportation processes.

Edgewell’s “people-first” approach significantly shapes its company culture. Each of their teams collaborates with the sustainability department to meet global consumer needs for personal wellness and hygiene products. This approach ensures sustainability is a key consideration while responding to consumer demand.

Before receiving the SmartWay Excellence Award, Edgewell had already made significant strides in sustainability across various aspects of their operations, products and packaging.

One notable achievement was the company’s success in reducing water usage by 5.2 percent by FY23, surpassing its goal of a five percent reduction compared to the FY19 baseline. 

Innovation in manufacturing has also been a key focus for the company. At their Ormond Beach facility, a breakthrough cold processing technique for ingredient batching was introduced during the production of certain sunscreen formulations. This innovation removed the need for traditional heating, reducing energy consumption by 90 percent per batch and saving approximately 75,500,000 kilojoules annually. The new method not only increased production capacity but also significantly contributed to the company’s energy efficiency goals.

Packaging sustainability has been another focal point for the company. Edgewell introduced a reusable sprayer for its BANANA BOAT sunscreen, paired with refill bottles made from recycled plastic. This move was part of the company’s larger effort to reduce waste and support more sustainable product life cycles. Additionally, the CREMO brand redesigned its packaging to include higher percentages of recycled materials.

Amy Knight, the vice president of global sustainability, noted the progress in packaging sustainability, particularly in reducing “virgin petroleum-based plastic.” Edgewell achieved a 55.8 percent reduction in virgin plastic in their razors and blades segment, surpassing their original reduction goal ahead of schedule. According to Knight, this effort underscores the company’s broader commitment to embracing circular economy principles and minimizing packaging waste.

Initially, Edgewell’s sustainability efforts were concentrated on internal operations, such as reducing waste and energy consumption, as well as enhancing workplace conditions within its manufacturing sites. However, the company soon realized that broadening its focus to include product sustainability and actively engaging with consumers would have a more significant impact. This shift allowed them to drive their sustainability initiatives forward and communicate their importance to both customers and consumers.

With time, Edgewell expanded its focus beyond the environmental footprint of its manufacturing facilities to address its overall carbon impact. This required the implementation of comprehensive systems to collect and analyze large amounts of data. Using this data, the company is now assessing greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain to uncover reduction opportunities and create strategies for decarbonizing the business as much as possible.

“Some of the biggest challenges we face in integrating sustainability into our operations are the resource availability and the inconsistent standards of facilities across the globe,” Caroline Mallet, the vice president of innovation transformation, said. “The transition to sustainability is a complex but necessary process to ensure social responsibility and long-term relevance.”

Although implementing sustainable solutions is necessary, they often come with increased expenses that most consumers are reluctant to bear. As a result, the company must continually find a way to advance while ensuring that consumers are open to adopting these changes. 

For example, when it comes to product packaging, most of it ends up as waste, making any innovation aimed at minimizing or eliminating this waste a positive development. However, packaging often serves as the main point of interaction with the customer, adding complexity to the issue.

Thinking ahead to emerging technologies and trends, Edgewell’s sustainability department is intrigued by the future intersection of AI and sustainability, according to Knight. While AI presents increasing environmental challenges, it also offers opportunities to track, enhance and expand the company’s efforts.

“We strive to embed sustainability deeper across our organization and at every stage of our product development,” Knight said. “And we entrust and empower our teammates to help bring our vision to life. It’s because of their passion and persistence that we are able to make progress across our global organization — whether through evolving products that inspire moments of consumer joy or embracing opportunities to reduce waste, emissions, energy use and water consumption.” 

Edgewell Personal Care Company is headquartered in Shelton, Conn.

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Daina Bray, a clinical lecturer at Yale Law School with the Law, Ethics & Animals Program, known as LEAP, and the project manager of the program’s Climate Change and Animal Agriculture Litigation Initiative, or CCAALI, explored how legal and policy tools can reduce the environmental impact of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs. The conversation addressed critical issues like methane emissions, advocacy challenges in the U.S., and the role of litigation in spurring reform.

“Litigation is an imperfect tool, but when policymakers are not doing enough, litigation can be an available tool for advocates,” Bray said. “Every effective social movement in this country has a litigation arm. Litigation is not sufficient by itself, but it can be an important part of a larger movement for change.”

Bray noted that climate litigation is now on the rise worldwide, with claimants becoming increasingly creative and achieving more successes. Significant policy voids around the regulation of animal agriculture and its environmental impact, she explained, often pushes advocates to turn to litigation. 

Despite the global attention on methane emissions from oil and gas, animal agriculture remains largely unregulated, even though it accounts for about one-third of human-caused methane emissions, according to Bray. 

She highlighted a recent World Bank report calling for a reallocation of agricultural subsidies that currently favor harmful products like meat and dairy. In agreement with the report, Bray urged that, instead of funding the most damaging products, we should redirect those subsidies to more sustainable, environmentally friendly and healthier alternatives. 

“I feel morally opposed to the cruelty towards animals; however, I recognize that most alternatives are unrealistic and infeasible in a country so ideologically diverse as America,” Jada Washington ’28 said. “It’s easier to move forward with the goal of decreasing climate change through industrial animal agriculture when the population is in agreement with the solution, but in America people cannot even agree on climate change’s existence.”

Bray highlighted Denmark and Taiwan as global leaders in promoting plant-based diets and reducing livestock-related emissions. Denmark’s national plant-based foods action plan, a collaborative effort involving farmers, businesses and the Vegetarian Society, encourages a shift away from livestock-heavy agriculture. Bray called Denmark “an exciting country to watch,” noting that it may soon introduce a tax on livestock emissions, making it the first nation to do so.

Bray stressed the urgency of addressing climate change, warning that the “staggering:” risk of crossing tipping points could trigger irreversible environmental consequences. She emphasized the “critical” importance of taking immediate action to avoid such outcomes. 

Bray also noted the underrepresentation of animal agriculture in the broader climate conversation, arguing that activists must bring more attention to the environmental impacts of this sector.

“One of the issues with industrial animal agriculture is the environmental harm it causes, and Professor Bray has been doing amazing work litigating to address those harms,” said Manav Singh ’25, the co-coordinator of speaker events for Plant Forward Yalies. “We thought this was a great person for students to be introduced to, to learn about her work and see if maybe it’s the kind of thing they would consider.”

Singh also emphasized the inclusivity of Plant Forward Yalies, where members range from non-vegetarians to vegans, all united by a commitment to tackling systemic issues in the food system. 

He encouraged students to explore various ways to solve these challenges, regardless of their academic focus. For example, the student organization runs a semesterly reading group, like a fellowship, where you can learn more about factory farming. 

Looking ahead, Plant Forward Yalies plans to host a variety of events, including an advocacy-focused talk by David Coman-Hidy, a journalism discussion with Kenny Torrella, and social cooking events.

Yale Law School is located at 127 Wall St.

Correction, Oct. 2: This article has been updated to clarify that Bray is a clinical lecturer at the Law School who leads the CCAALI program within LEAP, not LEAP itself.

Correction, Oct. 5: This article has been updated to clarify that Manav Singh ’25 is a co-coordinator of speaker events for Plant Forward Yalies and to correct the spelling of Kenny Torella’s name. 

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