Please join the MSU Department of Art, Art History, and Design for our annual Stanley & Selma Hollander Visiting Artist, Designer, and Scholar lecture series. All of our events are free and open to the public. Please plan to bring your MSU ID as many MSU campus buildings lock at 6pm. Someone will watch the door for community members to ensure they are able to continue to join us for these inspiring talks.
FALL 2025
September 12, 12:30pm, virtual visit
Alberto Rigau is a designer and educator committed to building creative communities. From participating in AIGA to collaborating with different organizations across Puerto Rico and the U.S., he blends culture, research, and storytelling through his studio, Estudio Interlínea. His work advocates for design that’s thoughtful, and human-centered.
September 18, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Rafael Domenech is a New York–based artist who merges sculpture, publishing, and architecture, turning exhibitions into active sites of production. He orchestrates objects, texts, and building components to expose the social systems that shape art. Domenech has realized projects at the Bass Museum (Miami), SculptureCenter (NY), and Passerelle Centre d’Art Contemporain (France). His work is in the permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), National Gallery of Art, and Pérez Art Museum Miami.
October 10, 12:30, virtual visit
Eric Benson has published and lectured internationally on the importance of sustainable design. His work has also garnered numerous design awards and has been seen in notable venues like The Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Hammer Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and RISD.
October 14, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Hongtao Zhou is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and scholar of Art, Design and Built Environment, who has exhibited his work at Centre Pompidou, the Venice Biennale, and Milan Triennial. He holds professorships at the University of Macau, Tongji University and serves as a Director of Permanent Collection Salone Satellite.
November 6, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Jonathan Springer is a Creative Director at REI Co-op, helping redefine what it means to be “outdoorsy” through bold and inclusive marketing campaigns. With a background in design and more than 20 years of experience, he’s created award-winning campaigns for USPS, Target, Whole Foods, Moncler, AT&T, and many other global brands.
November 13, 6pm, SCENE Metrospace | 110 Charles St. East Lansing, MI
Rania Totsika is a ceramic artist and founder of Pink Dolphin Ceramic Lab in Athens, Greece. With a background in architecture, she creates porcelain and stoneware pieces that blend structural design with material exploration. Her work bridges art, design, and architecture through both precise techniques and tactile, expressive forms.
November 18, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Lori Waxman, Critic-in-Residence
Lori Waxman is the Chicago Tribune’s longtime art critic and a monthly columnist for Hyperallergic. She teaches at SAIC and performs occasionally as the “60 wrd/min art critic.” She is the recipient of a Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, a 2018 Rabkin Prize, and the Jean Goldman Book Prize.
November 20, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Prof. Achim Timmermann, a specialist in medieval and Renaissance art and architecture, has focused on the visual culture of the eucharist, the nexus between art and pilgrimage, the architectural and pictorial stage-management of civic rituals, and the impact of the Stations of the Cross on the urban landscapes. Professor Timmermann will be serving as the Keynote Speaker for the Undergraduate Art History Symposium.
SPRING SEMESTER
January 29, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Isla Hansen is an artist making sculpture, interactive installation, performance, video, and play objects. Her work explores cultures surrounding play, personal technologies, labor, work, children’s media, fantasy, and the relationship between bodies and technological progress. Isla currently lives in Pittsburgh, where she teaches sculpture at Carnegie Mellon University.
February 6, 11:30, virtual visit
Sam Yates Meier is an educator at the University of Kansas (KU), senior designer at Hallmark Cards, and graduate student in Black Studies. Her experience spans in-house media, experiential design, and brand identity. She is an award-winning designer and illustrator, President Emeritus of AIGA KC, and current Co-Vice President of ICON, The Illustration Conference.
February 10, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Lindsey French is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and writer concerned with sensory engagements within multispecies commons. Earning an interdisciplinary BA from Hampshire College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lindsey now serves as Libra Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Maine.
March 10, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Prof. Giancarlo Fiorenza, an art historian of the early modern period, currently teaches at California Polytechnic University. From his book on Dosso Dossi’s intriguing oeuvre to his recent work on Marcantonio Raimondi, his focus has been on the significance and topicality of mythological and alchemical subjects to the Renaissance minds.
March 26, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Joanna DeGeneres graduated from MSU with her BFA in Art & Education in 1997, and her MFA in Acting from UW, Seattle in 2002. Joanna moved to LA to pursue a career in Acting. In 2007, she quit everything else she was doing to focus on her thriving photography business. Joanna’s visit is also sponsored by MSU Department of Theatre.
April 9, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Ekaterina Popova is a visual artist, coach, and founder of Create! Magazine. She empowers artists through her books, podcast, online courses, and coaching programs. Her work has been exhibited internationally. Ekaterina is passionate about helping creatives build sustainable careers through education, publishing, and mentorship in the contemporary art world.
April 14, 6pm, 107 S Kedzie
Danielle Aubert is a graphic designer whose work examines materials, methods of production, machines and labor. She is the author of The Detroit Printing Co-op: The Politics of the Joy of Printing, Marking the Dispossessed, and 16 Months Worth of Drawings in Microsoft Excel. She is an Associate Professor at Wayne State University, in Detroit.
