This fall, Professor Angela Washko will join University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art and Design as the Catherine B. Heller Collegiate Full Professor in Art. While Washko’s leaving is a loss for CMU, the School of Art congratulates her on this fantastic opportunity to continue her career as an artist and educator.
Washko first joined the School of Art as a visiting professor in 2015 and was appointed to the tenure-track faculty in 2017. In her nine years at CMU, she has organized many important events, workshops, and student exhibitions; expanded the School’s curriculum with a focus on new media, performance, and activism; and advised many MFA students.
Early in her tenure, she organized “Hacking / Modding / Remixing as Feminist Protest” at the Miller ICA, an exhibition of 22 artists, designers and developers that gave visibility to women’s perspectives and experiences often marginalized, ignored, or dismissed. In 2016 and 2017, she was also the regional organizer of the Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon, which works to correct historical biases against women in Wikipedia.
More recently, Washko co-founded Fail-Safe with Scott Andrew and Jesse Stiles. The recurring variety performance show brought together artists—including current students, Pittsburgh-based artists, and visiting artists—who presented new experimental performances in early stages of development.
In addition to these larger events, she also organized several events and visiting speakers through her Research Fellowship at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.
As a teacher, Washko designed many new classes including Digital Storytelling & Resistance, Performance Art in the Expanded Field, and the foundations class Risk, Agency, Failure. Her work advising graduate students has helped launch the careers of several successful alumni. She has served on the MFA Core Faculty since its inception.
As an artist, Washko has completed many important artworks during her time at CMU. These include: “The Game: The Game,” which exposes the tactics of male-pick up artists and their effects on femme-presenting people; “Workhorse Queen,” a documentary that explores the impact of mainstream television on drag; and “Mother, Player,” a narrative video game that features pregnancy and early parenthood stories form artists during the pandemic.
“Angela Washko has had an incredible impact on the School of Art in her nine years with us,” said Head of School Charlie White. “Her initiatives brought new and marginalized voices and perspectives to campus, her innovative classes expanded the possibilities of art making, and the artwork she made while here brought important issues to the fore. We will miss her, but we’re also excited for her fantastic new professorship at the University of Michigan.”