Faculty research themes and topics connect across disciplines—from insects and plant life to graffiti and hip-hop culture. They have the potential to impact society on a number of levels—and to aid in our understanding of the art world.
Featured research + creative activity

Malcolm Mobutu Smith
Associate Professor of Ceramics Malcolm Mobutu Smith explores race and representation in his ceramic sculptures, which incorporate Modernist formalism and comic book vernacular. An exhibition of his work at the Hunterdon Art Museum in New Jersey inspired a ballet.
Watch the performance
Andréa Stanislav
In her exhibition at the Museum of Russian Art, Associate Professor of Sculpture Andréa Stanislav showed sculpture, photo montages, collages, and multi-media pieces that explored the late 19th-century Russian philosophy of Cosmism, which imagined a future entirely transformed by technology. An affiliate Faculty of IU's Russian and Eastern European Institute, Stanislav has also had solo shows at the Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art in Pittsburgh and the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Learn more about the exhibition
Etien Santiago
The Society of Architectural Historians awarded Assistant Professor of Architecture Etien Santiago its Founders' Award for scholarship on the church of Notre-Dame du Raincy (1923) near Paris. In his article for the society's journal, Santiago illuminated the church's role not only as a place of worship, but as a war memorial both traditional and avant-garde.
Read the award winning piece