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Bard Alumna Sonita Alizadeh ’23 Profiled in Forbes

Bard alumna Sonita Alizadeh ’23, a Rhodes Scholar and human rights activist, was profiled in Forbes magazine. Born under Taliban rule, Alizadeh faced the threat of child marriage at the ages of 10 and 16 before finding her voice through music. She has since performed on global stages and collaborated with artists and organizations that share her mission, and she has also addressed world leaders and worked with NGOs such as the UN, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International to push for change. “Today, Sonita’s message is simple but profound: never underestimate the power of your voice,” writes Mandeep Rai for Forbes. “Dreams, she insists, are the ultimate weapon. Her journey is more than a story—it is a committed call to action, urging women to support one another and the world to take responsibility for girls in Iran, Afghanistan, and beyond.”
 

Post Date: 03-17-2026

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Bard Alumni/ae Will Feature in the 2026 Venice Biennale 

Works by two Bard College alumni/ae, Ei Arakawa-Nash MFA '07 and Lotus L. Kang MFA ’15, will be featured in the 2026 Venice Biennale, which will run from May 9 to November 22. Arakawa-Nash, a performance artist and member of Fac Xtra Retreat (FXR), a collective of seven LA–based Asian American artists, will represent Japan at the Biennale. He is collaborating with other FXR members on a performance project coproduced by the Getty Center and the Japanese Foundation for the Biennale’s Japan Pavilion. “Ei Arakawa-Nash and FXR bring together irreverence, generosity, and collective experimentation in ways that feel both intimate and expansive,” said Sarah Cooper, performance programs specialist at the J. Paul Getty Museum. “These performances contribute to the wider story of Asian diasporas in Greater Los Angeles … while embodying his distinctive alchemy of humor and truth that unsettles fixed roles, challenges social and institutional norms and honors the multiplicities we all hold.”

Sculptor Lotus L. Kang MFA ’15 has been commissioned to produce a major new installation for the inaugural Bulgari Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Kang’s artistic practice utilizes sculpture, photography and site-responsive installation to communicate themes drawn from industrial and architectural forms, familial and social histories, poetry, and non-human figures. “Known for her complexly layered environments that meld organic, structural and metabolic languages, Lotus L. Kang’s works give poetic form to reflections on themes spanning inheritance, impermanence, memory, and translation,” writes ArtDaily. “Working fluidly between sculpture, photography and site-responsive installation, she frequently draws on unfixed, unstable materials and forms in her practice, giving evocative, often expansive shape to questions of ‘becoming.’” 

Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a graduate program for interdisciplinary study in the visual and creative arts. Bard MFA takes place over two years and two months, with students in residence on campus during three consecutive summers, and two winter sessions of independent study completed off campus.  

Post Date: 03-10-2026