August 2026

Dear Alumni,

With the conclusion of the summer, new and returning students are back at BGC! Samuel Snodgrass (MA ’22) and I were recently discussing how the month of August always reminds us of moving into Bard Hall and all the excitement of beginning a new chapter in New York City.

The coming semester at BGC will see the opening of Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion in American Silent Film, a new exhibition at the gallery curated by two alumni, Michelle Finamore (PhD ’10) and Emma Cormack (MA ’18), who also serves as BGC’s associate curator for exhibitions and study collection curator. Before the show opens to the public on September 18, you’re invited to an opening celebration on Thursday, September 17, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Please RSVP here if you plan to join for what I’m sure will be a glamourous evening! 

Did you publish, curate, begin a new role, or celebrate a professional milestone this summer? If so, please let us know through our online form!

All best,

Julia Carabatsos (MA ’22)
alumni@bgc.bard.edu

Alumni Spotlight

Mya Rose Bailey (MA ’25) recently began a new position as a curatorial research associate at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Congratulations!

Select Career Opportunities

Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, Washington, seeks a curator of art to shape the vision of the collection, create compelling annual exhibitions, and oversee the care of the collection in alignment with the museum’s priorities, vision, and values. A successful candidate has experience working within a small team to foster trust, promote respect, and facilitate productive communication. Reporting to the executive director, the curator of art works with them closely to implement the museum’s mission and strategic goals. The curator of art supervises the collections manager, and they work together to realize successful exhibitions, research acquisitions and deaccession candidates, and facilitate collections use. The curator of art works collaboratively with the curator of education on educational and public programing pertaining to exhibitions and provides guidance to other staff relating to public spaces and visitor experience. They engage with peers across institutions, donors, lenders, gallerists, artists, scholars, museum trustees, and the public.  

The UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium, “Bodies Under Duress: Violence, Pressure, and the Visual,” which will take place on Friday, November 13, at the Hammer Museum, is accepting paper proposals. This symposium approaches the body as a site at which violence and power are represented, materialized, negotiated, and contested. By attending to both spectacular violence and the prolonged pressures that shape embodied life, “Bodies Under Duress” seeks to examine how art and visual culture make structures of power visible while also opening spaces for resistance, survival, remembrance, and transformation. Find more information here. 

For more job listings, please visit the BGC job board.
username: career.services@bgc.bard.edu
password: CareersBGC2025-6*=*

Select BGC Events

**Alumni receive complimentary tickets to attend BGC exhibitions and events. Use code ALUMNI at checkout.**

Fashion Shows on Film: An Evening of Silent Serials
Wednesday, September 23, 6 pm

An annotated screening of three films, live scored by Makia Matsumura, with Goddesses in the Machine cocurator Michelle Finamore.

Serial dramas of the 1910s and 1920s offered important promotional opportunities for American fashion designers. Like contemporary runway shows, they brought the latest fashion trends to audiences every week. Goddesses in the Machine cocurator Michelle Finamore will screen selections from three such serial dramas—The Perils of Pauline (1914), The Whirl of Life (1915) and The Mysterious Airman (1928)—with live accompaniment by Makia Matsumura. Following the screenings, Finamore and Matsumura will discuss the relationship between style, materiality, and music in these episodic films.

Victorian Hairwork and Nineteenth-Century Mourning Practice
Wednesday, September 30, 6 pm

A lecture by Karen Bachmann (Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute)

Nineteenth-century England was rife with sentimental culture. Death rates were high due to numerous factors including disease, war, and high childhood mortality. Queen Victoria became an unlikely fashion icon when she submerged herself in mourning after the deaths of both her husband, Prince Albert, and her mother in 1861. Aside from her mostly black wardrobe, she was widely known for her love of mourning jewelry, which contained the hair of loved ones inside. Victorian hairwork became popular in both jewelry and shadowbox form, transcending the concept of a wearable human relic into a fashion statement of the period. This lecture will explore this connection between fashion and mourning and will highlight several pieces from the largest collection of ornamental hairwork in America—Leila’s Hair Museum—of which many pieces are now housed at the Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn.

Select External Events

Wallach Workshop: The Garden of Stitches

Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University
Sunday, September 13, 2026
2:30 pm 

Fiber artist and master crocheter Milagros Batista invites you to contribute to her piece, The Garden of Stitches. During this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to crochet motif pieces that will become part of Batista’s installation, The Garden of Stitches, which is on view at the Children’s Art Carnival at 62 Hamilton Terrace, New York City. No previous crochet experience is required and materials will be provided. Please note that advance registration is required for this program. 

Milagros Batista is a master fiber artist, fashion designer, and social activist whose work is steeped in Afro-Caribbean tradition and visionary craftsmanship. Born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and raised in the heart of New York City, Batista draws inspiration from her mother, her ancestors, and the vibrant textile cultures of Latin America as she transforms yarn into bold, contemporary expressions of identity and heritage. Her hand-crocheted garments are more than fashion—they are vessels of memory, resilience, and radical beauty.

Batista is also the creative force behind Batista Collections, a crochet and knitwear brand specializing in custom wearable art. Her work has been spotlighted in solo and group exhibitions across the city for its powerful fusion of art, fashion, and social commentary. She currently serves as an artist-in-residence at the Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem, where she leads The Garden of Stitches—a vibrant collective healing initiative that invites community members to cocreate large-scale yarn installations in gardens. With the rallying call, “No perfection. Just connection,” the project transforms shared green spaces into living murals of color, care, and cultural pride.

Shop the BGC Store!

Visit our online store at store.bgc.bard.edu for 40% off all items. Enter code ALUMNI at checkout to receive the discount.

Sign up for Gaggle!

Gaggle.mail is an opt-in list-serv that serves as a place to share job openings, conference attendance, published books/articles, and exhibition openings directly with fellow alums. It’s a communication forum for alumni, by alumni. To circulate your news in the Gaggle group, send an email to bgcalumni@gaggle.email.