President Elissa Tenny on the Power of Interdisciplinarity

Experimenting outside of a singular discipline is essential to the curriculum of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and learning across disciplines is a metamorphosis so many students here make.

If you’re an architect, you’ll also take ceramics. If you’re an art historian, you’ll look through a camera lens, too. If you’re a painter, take a course on climate change. I’ve seen this transformation countless times: a student comes to SAIC focused on one medium—then discovers something new. A life-altering passion. An unanticipated synergy. A new way forward.

This issue of School of the Art Institute of Chicago magazine celebrates the School’s focus on interdisciplinarity, which has long been the keystone of an SAIC education. By working across artforms and disciplines, SAIC artists, designers, and scholars find ways to address the world’s complexities, locate continuities among divergent ideas, and connect their work to the grand history of human imagination and innovation. For example, the cover feature on alum Nyugen E. Smith (MFA 2016) explores how he uses myriad art forms to bring awareness to the trauma and resilience of people living throughout the Black African diaspora. Also featured are Nereida Patricia (BFA 2020), whose canvases of beadwork defy categorization, and Brenda Torres-Figueroa (MFA 2004), whose curatorial, teaching, and artistic practices all strengthen one another.

These stories and the others shared in this issue show how art and design are boundless. They underscore the importance of being open: to new ideas, to new forms, to new possibilities. I hope you find something that ignites your creativity in these pages.

Elissa Tenny
President ■