Technology meets creativity in MIAD’s 2019 Senior Exhibition, April 19 – May 11

MILWAUKEE… March 25, 2019 – From animated video campaigns and smart interfaces to improved design of healthcare equipment and multimedia art installations, technology meets creativity in the 2019 Senior Exhibition. Projects of more than 100 of Milwaukee’s emerging artists and designers graduating this spring from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) are on view April 19 – May 11 in MIAD’s Galleries, with an Opening Reception April 26, 5 – 9 p.m., during Spring Gallery Night in the Historic Third Ward. The public is welcome and admission is free. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. The MIAD Senior Exhibition is generously sponsored by BMO Harris Bank.

Samuel Joseph

Highlights this year include:

• a more comfortable and attractive palliative care system by Clare O’Malley (Industrial Design) that allows cancer patients to live more independently away from the hospital.
• a smart interface with a mobile app, website and smart watch app by Tess Powers (Industrial Design) to better assist patients and their multiple caregivers coordinate their responsibilities and schedules.
• a suicide prevention campaign for transgender and gender nonconforming youth by Tony Holz (Communication Design) that incorporates animated videos and a website that LGBTQ organizations can use to provide support and encouragement to teenagers.
• a large-scale, immersive installation with fabrics, video and projection by Malia Spellman (New Studio Practice: Fine Arts) that showcases how she learned to cope with a muscular disease through exercising her hands therapeutically by creating art; the exhibit shows how external factors influence internal factors.
• a redesigned orthopedic shoe for diabetics who suffer from nerve damage designed by Samuel Joseph (Industrial Design), in consultation with designers and MIAD alumni at Weyco Group, Inc.

MIAD’s annual Senior Exhibition, Wisconsin’s largest exhibition of its kind, is the culmination of the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program for students in all of the college’s majors and minors, including Communication Design, Illustration, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture and Design and New Studio Practice: Fine Arts.

MIAD is among the top three art and design colleges nationwide for helping students from low-income backgrounds attain upper-middle-class jobs, according to Money Magazine’s 2018 Best Colleges for Your Money. The nonprofit college also has been named a Top Design College by Graphic Design USA for four consecutive years. Two MIAD seniors – Tony Holz and Cera Propper – were named 2019 “Students to Watch” by Graphic Design USA.

MIAD alumni are employed in a variety of creative, design and leadership roles at companies such as Briggs & Stratton, Discovery World, Fiskars, GE Healthcare, Google, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, IBM, Kohler Company, Kohl’s Corporation, Latino Arts Inc., Microsoft, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Public Schools, Milwaukee Tool, Rockwell Automation and Trek.