Arts & Culture

In “Confronting Urbanization,” a wall-sized drawing at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Petra Kempf combines copious data and mischievous symbolism to explore how smart phones, online commerce and global connectivity are reshaping the urban terrain.

In “The Science of Leaving Omaha,” playwright Carter W. Lewis brings sly humor and deep sympathy to a story of young people, stalled lives and the desperation for escape. Commissioned by WashU’s Performing Arts Department, the play will receive its world premiere Nov. 18-21.

Afrobeat, Spanish dance, Ukrainian multi-instrumentalists and contemporary Son jarocho and Afro-Mexican music. Next spring, WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2) and Department of Music will partner with The Sheldon to present the fourth annual Whitaker World Music Series.

Through the innovative ‘Made to Model’ program, WashU students are producing, designing and creating formal fashion for St. Louis-area kids who might otherwise be overlooked.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present “Portrait, number 1 man (day clean ta sun down),” a two-day performance by artist Sheldon Scott, Nov. 18 and 19. An homage to Scott’s enslaved ancestors, the piece consists of the artist hulling and winnowing rice without break from sunrise to sunset.

Secret military experiments. A television star turned health-care activist. The yearslong battle to remove a Confederate statue in New Orleans. This month, the Film & Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences will screen more than 20 films as part of the 2021 St. Louis International Film Festival.

Students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts have won the 2021 Barbara G. Laurie Student Design Competition, sponsored by the National Organization of Minority Architects.

In a new book, Wolfram Schmidgen, professor of English, explains how the excitement and anxiety about a disordered world affected literary invention in 18th-century England. “Infinite Variety: Literary Invention, Theology, and the Disorder of Kinds, 1688-1730” combines intellectual history with close analysis of the literary inventions of Richard Blackmore, John Locke, Jonathan Swift, and Daniel Defoe.

“La Cortadora de Café” (2021), a painting by Quinn Antonio Briceño, a candidate for a master’s in fine arts at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, will be featured in the AXA Art Prize 2021 Exhibition.