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Department of the History of Art and Architecture
October 2026
A ROOM WITH A VIEW: Conversation with arts Vesna Pavlović and art historian Nicoletta Rousseva
5:00 p.m.Oct
14
5:00 p.m.
Sponsored by the UO Department of Art History and the Haseltine Endowment for Design and Decorative Arts
Please join us for a conversation between critically acclaimed Serbian-American artist Vesna Pavlović and art historian Nicoletta Rousseva, moderated by Julie Hessler, UO Associate Professor of History. Their dialogue will explore Pavlović’s body of photographic work in relation to its primary subject: the social and political ideologies reflected in mid-century Socialist Yugoslavian architecture, with particular interest in connections between statehood, power, and design. By focusing her lens on largely abandoned or transitionally preserved spaces, Pavlović highlights how art, architecture, and design are intrinsically bound to the rise and fall of political regimes and to the shaping of ideological worldviews.
Vesna Pavlović is the Paul E. Schwab Chair in Fine Art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She is the recipient of an NEA Art Projects Award, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, and a Fulbright Scholar Award, among others. She has shown in solo and group exhibitions at distinguished institutions and in large-scale, international contemporary art exhibitions including The Phillips Collection and the Hirshhorn Museum; the 12th Istanbul Biennial; the 13th Havana Biennial, Rios Intermitentes Project; the Metropolitan Arts Center, Belfast; National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Bucharest Biennale 5; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Fondazione Giorgio e Armanda Marchesani, Venice; and the Photographers’ Gallery, London. Her work has featured in ARTMargins, Art Africa, Art in America, Artforum, The Washington Post, and Art Papers.
Nicoletta Rousseva is a Visiting Assistant Professor of South Slavic Culture and the Michael Henry Heim Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. A specialist on modern and contemporary art across southeastern Europe, her research examines how art engages political structures and institutions at moments of extreme crisis and in an effort to broaden narrowed horizons of possibility. Nicoletta earned a PhD in Art History with an interdepartmental concentration in Central and East European Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago (2022). She is the recipient of fellowships from ACLS, AISEES (American Institute for Southeast European Studies), Fulbright, and the Mellon Foundation. Her essays and reviews have been published in ARTMargins, Art Journal, The Brooklyn Rail, caa.reviews, and elsewhere.
This talk precedes an exhibition of Vesna Pavlović’s photography at RecRoom gallery, opening October 17th, 4–6 pm. See RecRoomEugene.com for details
School of Art + Design Events
October 2026
Ido Radon: “Artist Talk”
4:00 p.m.
Oct
8
4:00 p.m.
University of Oregon 2026-27 Visiting Artist Lecture Series Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
Ido Radon will give a talk on recent exhibitions, form and content, negation, structures, mechanical joinery, the utopian impulse, the artist-spectator-artwork triangle, maintaining productive tension, and history.
Radon is an artist and writer whose practice is an attempt to give form to the abstractions that shape contemporary life in order to make them thinkable. Radon has made solo exhibitions at Afternoon Projects, (Vancouver, BC), Air de Paris (Paris), Artspeak (Vancouver, BC), Ditch Projects (Springfield, OR), Et al. (San Francisco), ILY2 (Portland), Jupiter Woods (London), Pied-à-terre (San Francisco), Romance (Pittsburgh), and Veronica (Seattle) and shown work at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Belkin Art Gallery, and the Henry Art Gallery. Her exhibition Men make their own history.... was commissioned by Lumi Tan for the 2026 Converge45 triennial. An autodidact, Radon holds a BS in Political Science from California Polytechnic University and an MFA from the University of British Columbia. She is the Director of SOCIETY, a space for contemporary art and its histories and discourses.
Keith J. Varadi: “Finding Alternatives in an Age of Uncertainty”
4:00 p.m.
Oct
15
4:00 p.m.
University of Oregon 2026-27 Visiting Artist Lecture Series Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
In recent years, there has been a rise in fascism, multiple genocides, unnecessary wars, the monopolization of industries, turbulent economies, the development of artificial intelligence and the fear of subsequent technological eradication, among other pervasive global anxieties and insecurities. As a result, markets have suffered, artists have abandoned their studios, galleries have shuttered, and academic and cultural institutions have been in a state of upheaval. Yet, as the brilliant William Beckett once said, “I can’t go on, I’ll go on,” and thus, we too must go on. But how? Keith J. Varadi intends to share his experiences of attempting to figure out ways to do so.
Keith J. Varadi (b. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1985) is an artist, writer, researcher, curator, and gallerist based in Los Angeles, California. He is the Director of Gene's Dispensary, which he founded in May of 2024. In addition to exhibitions at the gallery's primary location, Varadi now curates off-site exhibitions and produces events under the Gene's moniker. The gallery's roster currently lists Joshua Abelow, Jesse Benson, Merideth Hillbrand, and LeRoy Stevens.
As an artist and independent curator, Varadi's work has been exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally, over the past decade. His writing has been published in Art in America, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, Flash Art, Kaleidoscope, LEAP, Spike, and X-TRA. He has released his poetry in both audio and written form. Aside from his work in the art world, he has worked as a researcher for two private investigation firms and for the long-running television game show, Jeopardy!.
Career Tour-Tech + Design Edition
8:45 a.m.
Oct
16
8:45 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Creativity and technology can go hand-in-hand! Let's meet some Oregon companies that are innovating across industries (tech, video game design, web/graphic design, UX, government, & more! ) AND explore Eugene all at the same time! Hop on the bus and let’s go explore!
Students will have the opportunity to tour local companies passionate about creating innovative solutions for complex problems, and helping YOU learn more about all the different types of job functions needed to keep this growing industry booming. They are excited to introduce you to careers and internships at their companies, meet alumni and leaders, and show off some of their innovations in action! This event is FREE, open to all majors, faculty/staff, and bring a friend! Register on Handshake to save your spot & get updates! Our last tour had a waitlist, so sign up today!
OUTLINE OF TOUR:
Meet at Ford Alumni Center Lobby (near Matt Knight Arena Duck Statue) NO LATER THAN 9am; We'll walk over to the bus stop (Agate) to catch the EMX to downtown Eugene. All our sites are within walking distance of one another, so be prepared to get some exercise! While at the stops, you'll get an opportunity to tour their facilities as well as meet with leaders in the field. At 1 we'll be done with the tour and you can stick around downtown to keep exploring and grab lunch OR a group will be getting on the bus to head back to campus you can join.
ABOUT OUR TOUR STOPS:
Pipeworks Studios Video Game Developers of awesome apps and well-known video games like Madden 24 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Learn about creative careers, project management, and see behind the scenes at one of the coolest workspaces in Eugene.
Avant Assessment builds and delivers ever more effective assessments of real-world proficiency. They’ve expanded their offerings to support all areas of language acquisition with professional learning for world language and dual language educators in addition to Mira, the newly released AI-based language learning app.
Lane County Government Technology Services: featuring Mark Davis for an inside scoop on the Eugene Tech community Open Eugene: community connectors providing access and opportunities to create, collaborate and innovate to solve problems and invest back into the community.
NOTE: make sure you have your FREE LTD bus pass loaded on your phone https://transportation.uoregon.edu/bus
questions, email htate@uoregon.edu for more info or if you don't have a Handshake account and want to join us!
Aruna D'Souza: “Imperfect Solidarities, Two Years Later”
4:00 p.m.
Oct
22
4:00 p.m.
University of Oregon 2026-27 Visiting Artist Lecture Series Presented by the Department of Art and Center for Art Research
In 2024, Aruna D'Souza published Imperfect Solidarities, a short book about artworks and practices that offer, in direct and indirect ways, examples of being in solidarity in ways that preserve individual and collective sovereignties. These moments in contemporary art—including those by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Stephanie Syjuco, Candice Breitz, and the feminist collective AIR Gallery in New York—allowed Souza to imagine creating momentary alliances in space with the goal of preserving and nurturing life, first and above all. This talk will add to that roster, drawing on artists and collectives around the world who allow us to envision a solidarity that does not require subsuming self in other, or absorbing other in self—an especially urgent project in a moment of rising global fascism.
Aruna D'Souza writes about modern and contemporary art, intersectional feminisms, and diasporic aesthetics. Her work appears regularly in 4Columns, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and in numerous artist’s monographs and exhibition catalogues. Whitewalling: Art, Race, and Protest in 3 Acts was named one of the best art books of 2018 by the New York Times. Recent editorial projects include Linda Nochlin’s Making It Modern: Essays on the Art of the Now and Lorraine O’Grady’s Writing in Space 1973-2018; she co-curated the retrospective “Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And” at the Brooklyn Museum in 2021. She is the recipient of the 2021 Rabkin Prize for art journalism and a 2019 Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant. She was appointed the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery of Art in 2022, and the W.W. Corcoran Professor of Social Engagement at the Corcoran School of Art, George Washington University, in 2022-2023. Her most recent book Imperfect Solidarities was published in 2024.
This lecture is made possible by Critical Conversations, a platform for dialogue and inquiry that supports established artists and writers across Oregon. Developed in partnership between The Ford Family Foundation and the University of Oregon’s Center for Art Research, this initiative engages contemporary art spaces, statewide, to host prominent visiting curators and arts writers for studio visits, public lectures and community engagement.
School of Architecture & Environment
School of Planning, Public Policy and Management
October 2026
Jeremiah Public Lecture: "Finding Sustainable Transitions in Declining Japanese Municipalities"
4:00 p.m.Oct
15
4:00–5:20 p.m.
Guest speaker: Fernando Ortiz-Moya, Assistant Professor, Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Japan
Japan is shrinking. How are its cities and towns responding?
Traditionally, Japanese local governments, encouraged by national policy, have sought to halt or reverse their decline by luring urban migrants, increasing birth rates, attracting businesses, and curbing outmigration. This obsession with growth threatens to exhaust already limited resources, closing windows of opportunity for managing a soft landing.
Eventually, continuous shrinkage will force local governments to abandon growth-focused planning and redesign their communities: they must learn to shrink gracefully. Some municipalities are already charting this different course. This presentation argues that shrinking municipalities must break free from pro-growth strategies, embracing more sustainable approaches. These cities are putting socio-environmental concerns at the centre of their strategies, identifying new ways to transition successfully into smaller, sustainable communities.
Event sponsors:
School of Planning, Public Policy and Management; Department of Geography; Ecological Design Center; Global Studies Institute; Association of Pacific Rim Universities – Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Program; Center for Asian and Pacific Studies; and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant
November 2026
Wine Chat: Eleonora Redaelli on the Invisible Influence of Policy in American Culture
5:30 p.m.Nov
12
5:30–7:00 p.m.
The Oregon Humanities Center presents a wine chat with Professor Eleonora Redaelli.
Who actually keeps American culture alive? We tend to picture artists, scholars, and museums — but a quiet, tangled web of federal, state, and local government has shaped the country’s cultural life for decades, usually without anyone noticing. Drawing on her book, Invisible Cultural Policy in America, Professor Eleonora Redaelli will trace how this patchwork system emerged, the debates that shaped how we think about arts, humanities, and historic preservation, and what it looks like on the ground — from Oregon to Minnesota, Maryland, and New Mexico.
Join Professor Redaelli and the Oregon Humanities Center for a thoughtful discussion of this matter. Doors open at 5 p.m. Beverages and food will be available for purchase and light refreshments will be provided. There is ample parking at Banner Bank across the street. This event is free and open to the public. Please register at ohc.oregon.edu.