Meet our panel for Waste Land

Each year we put together a panel to facilitate and guide our student audience through an engaging discussion about our film. This year for Waste Land, we are joined by panelists Flavia Bastos, Jaime Bennati and Aparna Dial. Each will offer a wide range of insight to include topics that touch on cultural, environmental, and artistic perspectives.

 

Waste Land Panelists

Flávia Bastos, Ph.D. is a Brazilian native who lives and works in Cincinnati. Flávia is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Visual Arts Education, School of Art, University of Cincinnati. She also directs the Art in the Market Program, a community-based initiative that teams local youth and students from the college of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) to improve neighborhoods and empower participants through the process of socially engaged art. Her research and scholarship are indebted to her Brazilian roots, experiences with social and cultural diversity and inspired by the educational philosophy of educator Paulo Freire. Therefore, art education practices are fueled by progressive education ideas that honor the artistic potential and celebrate possibilities and talents of all people.

Flávia’s recent accomplishments include being elected Director of the Higher Education Division of the National Art Education Association and member of the Council of Policy Studies in Art Education; receiving in 2009 the Ziegefeld Award of the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) for her distinguished service in international art education and in 2007 the Mary J. House Award of the National Art Education Association Women’s Caucus. She is past senior editor of the Journal of Art Education and has published and lectured extensively in the United States and other countries such as such as South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Spain, and Portugal. Her books include Transforming City Schools through Art: Approaches to Meaningful K-12 Learning, a co-edited volume published by Teachers College Press (2012), and the upcoming anthology Connecting Creativity Research and Practice in Art Education: Foundations, Pedagogies, and Contemporary Issues, to be released by the National Art Education Association in 2014.

 

Jaime Bennati

Paper artist and collector, Jaime Bennati examines a humans relationship with material consumption. By collecting and gathering materials that are often overlooked, she makes the viewer question our relationship to things we keep and discard daily. She creates meticulous, obsessive relief sculptures and installations that reference forms in nature. A large part of her work is based on processes and has begun to work on community based projects since becoming a teaching artist in 2009. In 2008 she graduated from The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with her B.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Sculpture specializing in Installation, Sculpture, and Graphic Design.

Following her graduation she began showing her work locally as well as internationally. She lived abroad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2009-2010 traveling, learning Portuguese and spending time with her Brazilian relatives. In 2011 she returned to Mica to graduate with a Masters of Arts in Teaching. She is currently developing new work after living in Goiânia, Brazil in 2011. She has exhibited in Baltimore, Maryland, Columbus, Ohio, Brooklyn, New York, Richmond, Virginia, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is a 2013 recipient for the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and Fellowship recipient from the Vermont Studio Center. She resides in Columbus and was born and raised in Westerville.

 

Aparna Dial

Aparna Dial serves as the University Energy and Sustainability Engineer at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she is responsible for leadership, strategic planning, development, coordination and implementation of energy and sustainability programs, standards and policies at an institutional level that maximize the environmental and financial performance of the University and establish Ohio State as a national and international leader in the field of sustainability.

 

Prior to working in her current capacity she was the Director of Environmental Affairs at OSU and dealt with Engineering Review of Construction Projects,  Air, Water, Hazardous Waste and Asbestos issues and compliance with environmental regulations. Aparna has over 18 years of experience in the area of sustainability with direct experience in strategic planning, project management, environmental compliance and enforcement. Aparna serves on Ohio State’s President’s and Provost’s Council on Sustainability. Among other activities, she is also chair of the Mayor’s Green Team for the City of Columbus.

She has an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Osmania University, India, an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University and an MBA from The Fisher College of Business at OSU.  

 

 

 



 

 

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