The fall season of Tyler School of Art and Architecture’s major lecture series – Critical Dialogues, AED Presents and Laurie Wagman Visiting Artists and Artist-in-Residence Series – begins this month with a lineup of cutting-edge artists and scholars working in diverse disciplines, from photographic imagery, Islamic jug filter design, portraiture abstraction to Main Streets and mental health, global urbanization, and modern landscape architecture.

This Wednesday, Critical Dialogues will feature Philadelphia artist Eileen Neff, who has been working with photo-based images and photo/installations since 1980. Drawing on both historic and contemporary concepts of picturing the natural and constructed world, Neff's work includes an investigation of studio practice itself as part of its generative sources.

Tyler’s Architecture and Environmental Design Department will present a book talk with Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, who has interrogated the ways in which street forms and their accompanying activities affect population mental health. Over 11 years, she has used the "stroll and scroll method" to research Main Streets in 178 cities in 14 countries.

The first speaker in the Laurie Wagman Visiting Artist and Artist-in-Residence Series will be German glass artist Anna Mlasowsky, recognized for her experimental and boundary pushing work in glass. Mlasowsky, considered one of the leading female artists working in glass today, holds the 2021 Silver Prize in Japan’s triennial Toyama International Glass Exhibition and received the Chihuly Emerging Artist Award in 2019.

“The conversations we want to have through our lecture series are with emerging as well as established artists tackling relevant issues and pushing boundaries in urban design, city planning and green architecture,” said Lolly Tai, professor of landscape architecture at Tyler.

Gerard Brown, Art Department Chair and organizer of the Critical Dialogue Series, said he strives to present artists, scholars and professional in creative fields who represent distinctive voices that will generate new ideas and conversations or shift existing paradigms.

“Artists such as Stephanie H. Shih, whose painted sculptures invoke the Asian American experience through the lens of the kitchen, and comic book artist and illustrator Weshoyot Alvitre, whose Native American heritage informs her artistry, are making us look in new ways at culturally situated aesthetics and their contributions to the practice of art-making.”

Glass Program Head Jessica Julius said the speakers selected for the Laurie Wagman series reflect Tyler’s emphasis on interdisciplinarity as a fundamental aspect of research and practice. “The Wagman series realizes this by inviting artists and lecturers with diverse backgrounds, experiences, expertise and practices—from traditional to innovative to experimental—to speak to students, offer demonstrations and stimulate exchanges of new ideas.”

Critical Dialogues has brought hundreds of leading practitioners, scholars, curators and other arts professionals to speak over the last two decades. The Laurie Wagman Fund in Glass Art, established in 2012, supports the Wagman Visiting Artist series. AED Presents is in its third year as a combined series of architecture, landscape architecture and city planning lectures.

The full list of Fall speakers for Tyler’s major lecture series are below. Browse additional events on Tyler's Calendar of Events.

CRITICAL DIALOGUES

• What Did We Learn from Learning to See? – Sept. 8
• Festa di Roma – Sept. 15
• Eileen Neff – Sept. 22
• Stephanie H. Shih – Sept. 29
• Weshoyot Alvitre – Oct. 6
• Everest Pipkin – Oct. 13
• Gerald A. Brown – Oct. 20
• Daphne Arthur – Oct. 27
• Ibrahim Said – Nov. 3
• Carolina Caycedo – Nov. 10
• Jason Dunda – Nov. 17

AED PRESENTS

• Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove – Sept. 22
• Shuman Alumni Lecture: Ray Brower – Sept. 27
• Ghigo DiTommaso – Oct. 6
• Laura Hansplant – Oct. 13
• Anne Fadullon – Oct. 20
• Jeff Richards – Nov. 3
• Andrea Cochran – Nov. 10

LAURIE WAGMAN VISITING ARTIST AND ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

• Anna Mlasowsky – Sept. 27
• Janine Antoni – Oct. 11
• Related Tactics, A Collective – Nov. 8