VMA BIPOC Student and Faculty Social

Date: Monday Dec. 6th 
Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Location: 172 Tremont Street, The Multipurpose Room
 
The Equity and Cultural Climate Committee (EC3) of the Visual and Media Arts (VMA) department is hosting a social for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students and faculty members in VMA. Join us on December 6th to meet and connect with other BIPOC in the VMA community.
Bios of participating faculty members are noted below. Light refreshments will be served. 
Due to limited space, please RSVP for this event by emailing the Administrative Associate, Chris Lau, at chris_lau@emerson.edu. This free event is only open to BIPOC students in the VMA program. 
__ 
De-nin Lee is an art historian. Her current research focuses on the intersection of Chinese landscape and environmental concerns. She teaches courses on the history of South Asian and East Asian art. She is currently on EC3 and is an Associate Chair in VMA.
Read more: https://emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/de-nin-lee 
 
Ed Lee is an assistant professor at Emerson teaching screenwriting in the VMA Department and the Comedic Arts B.F.A. He previously taught at the American Film Institute Conservatory, University of Southern California, Cal State Long Beach, and UCLA Extension. Most recently, Ed wrote and produced the short film Becoming Eddie, based upon his experiences growing up Asian American as well as his love for comedians like Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and Sam Kinison. 
Read more: https://emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/edward-lee 
 
Cristina Kotz Cornejo is a storyteller, media maker and media arts educator, recognized by VARIETY as 2021 Educator of the Year. Born in Michigan but raised on the West Coast of the United States and in Buenos Aires, Argentina in a bilingual, bicultural family, Cristina Kotz Cornejo is also a descendant of the Indigenous Huarpe people of the Cuyo region of Argentina. She has an M.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She’s the first Latina Full Professor of media production in the US, and is currently the Chair of the VMA Department. 
Read more:https://www.wildwimminfilms.com/
 
Homa Sarabi-Daunais is a media producer, educator and artist based in Boston.  She works predominantly with moving image and photography. She holds an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and graduated with a bachelor’s in Photography from the University of Tehran. Her practice is centered around the experience of immigration and physical dislocation and the Iranian diaspora. She experiments with personal storytelling through different mediums. 
Read more: https://homasarabi.com/
 
Wilson Chao is a first-generation US citizen, but a third-generation Ivy League alumnus. The first in his family to be western-educated was his grandfather, who was born in 1888 in Guanxi (the southernmost of China’s five “Ethnic Minority Autonomous Regions”). Wilson’s grandfather’s mother was a slave owned by his father, a landowner & merchant. His grandfather’s graduate studies in the US inspired him to send Wilson’s mother to America to survive the Chinese civil war, and thus Wilson was born in New York City, an American by accident. Wilson works on long-form non-fiction programming for public television, mainly documentaries but also “how-to” and performance shows. He teaches CA-200 “Modes of Comedy Production” and VM-241 “Intro to Studio TV Production”. He enjoys meeting people, so please introduce yourself!
Read more: https://emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/wilson-chao
 
Jun Okada is an Associate Professor of Media Studies at Emerson. She has published a book Making Asian American Film and Video: Histories, Institutions, Movements with Rutgers University Press. Her research interests include Critical Race Studies, Global Film Histories, and Film Theory. At Emerson, her courses include Foundations courses and 400 level seminars in Media Studies. She has previously worked in the Department of English at SUNY Geneseo and earned a PhD in Critical Media Studies at UCLA.
Read more: https://emerson.edu/faculty-staff-directory/jun-okada 
 
Rashin Fahandej is an Iranian-American multimedia artist, independent filmmaker and assistant professor of emerging and interactive media at Emerson College. Her projects center on marginalized voices and the role of media, technology, and public collaboration in generating social change. A proponent of “Art as Ecosystem,” she defines her projects as “Poetic Cyber Movement for Social Justice,” where art mobilizes a plethora of voices by creating connections between public places and virtual spaces. She is the founder of “A Father’s Lullaby, “ a multi-platform, co-creative project that highlights the role of men in raising children and their absence due to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Marginalia, a series of poetic documentaries about Baha’i immigrants of Iranian descent, narrates a historical persecution in their homeland. 
Read More: http://www.rashinfahandej.com/about 
 
Luis Arnias  (b.1982) is a filmmaker from Venezuela who currently lives and works in Boston, MA. In 2009, he completed the diploma program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and in 2020 he received his Masters in Film/Video from Milton Avery Graduate School at Bard College. He is currently a Fellow at The Film Study Center at Harvard University.
Read more: https://luisarnias.net/ 
 
Maria Agui Carter is the founder of Iguana Films, an Emerson professor, and a professional Screenwriter, Director and Producer. She directed and is now completing a new social impact environmental short on food sovereignty featuring urban farmers in South Side Chicago for Wild Elements Studio. As Creative Producer, she has several BIPOC led documentaries in the pipeline, funded by Sundance and Ford foundation, among others. Next, she will direct her feature script, SECRET LIFE OF LA MARIPOSA, a fable on immigration and climate change based on her experience growing up undocumented, in development with producer Barbara DeFina attached. At Emerson, she teaches VM244 Intro to Production, VM402 The Other In US Film & TV, VM402 Anti-Racist Media and more.  Read More:https://www.iguanafilms.com/about/maria
Hosted by: Visual & Media Arts Department
Additional Information can be found at: https://emconnect.emerson.edu/event/7622646