College Receives Major Art and Technology Grant
The Sherman Fairchild Foundation has awarded a grant to Bennington College for the Open Art and Technology Initiative. The $300,000, three-year grant will support a faculty-led project to create new opportunities for Bennington’s visual and performing arts faculty to collaboratively develop curriculum that uses new technology, with the support of visiting artist-technologists who will teach and train faculty and students together in an open environment of artistic and intellectual exchange.
Through the design and implementation of prototype courses, the initiative will explore an array of technologies with the capacity to support synergies among program areas and empower faculty with the skills, support, and resources needed to embed these synergies within the Bennington curriculum. It will serve not only as a powerful creative catalyst for the campus community but will also expand Bennington’s longstanding efforts to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and to enrich learning opportunities for its students. Grant funds will support equipment purchases as well as collaborative training and teaching provided by visiting artist-technologists affiliated with key partnering organizations.
President Elizabeth Coleman noted that the Open Art and Technology Initiative “reflects so much of what Bennington holds dear: creative exploration, collaboration, and connection between people, idea, and disciplines. The catalyzing potential of this grant, in both foreseeable and unexpected ways, is considerable.”