Still from Terang Benderang (Clear and Vivid) (2024) by Khairullah Rahim.

Summer 2024 Newsletter: Sinha Fellow 2024-25

Sinha Fellow 2024-25

Congratulations to Maggie Meyer, MA in Media Studies student at The New School, who has been awarded the 2024-25 Bishwanath and Sandhya Sinha Memorial Fellowship! We look forward to the work she will be doing during her fellowship year.

Maggie Meyer is a creative and scholar who is passionate about the intersection of community, capitalism, agriculture, and media in the United States. She approaches this work through storytelling and data visualization methods that take the form of scholarly research, writing, and creative transmedia projects. She earned her BA in Race and Ethnic Studies at St. Olaf College with a focus in forced migration and has a professional background in theatrical lighting design.

Currently, Maggie is an MA in Media Studies student at The New School. Here, she has been examining the role of food as a tangible media that both represents the unsustainable and frequently violent nature of the United States’s food system, as well as food’s power as a tool of activism. Maggie is also the Academic Food Writing Editor for the Inquisitive Eater, The New School’s Food Literary Magazine.

Pigeon Poetics by Johann Yamin

Still from Terang Benderang (Clear and Vivid) (2024) by Khairullah Rahim. Courtesy of the artist.

A mini online exhibition of video works curated by outgoing Sinha Fellow (2023-24) Johann Yamin is now live on the Media+Migration Lab website.

https://www.m2lab.net/projects/pigeon-poetics

Titled Pigeon Poetics, it is a pairing of video works that speak to the politics and intimacies of movements to, through, and from Southeast Asia. The figure of the pigeon, a historic messenger now often othered and feminized as a non-native creature, connects two short films by artists Lananh Chu (Vietnam) and Khairullah Rahim (Singapore).

An essay by Yamin titled Pigeon Poetics: Movements to, through, and from Southeast Asia accompanies the two video works.

Black Migration and Climate Displacement in the United States by Chase Louden

Thornton Dial, Royal Flag (detail), 1997-1998, American flag, toy doll, toy bull, string, fabric, industrial sealing compound, oil, enamel, spray paint on canvas mounted on wood, 78 × 80 × 7 in.

Read the latest Migration Mapping commentary, “Black Migration and Climate Displacement in the United States” by Chase Louden at the link below.

https://migrationmapping.org/black-migration-and-climate-displacement-in-the-united-states/

“Black migrants are not necessarily moving away from areas prone to climate risk, but are moving towards them,” writes Parsons alum Chase Louden in our latest Migration Mapping commentary. Louden explores the complexities of climate displacement for Black communities in the US, from its historic origins to its unstable futures. The commentary is accompanied by a specially-created StoryMap by the author, featuring annotated maps and images with additional research.

We accept submissions for analyses and multimedia projects like this year-round. Check out our submissions page for more details.

The new writings and materials in this newsletter have been made possible through the Sinha Memorial Fellowship, which is awarded yearly by The New School’s School of Media Studies.