Arts & Culture

What is the nature of the self? How do conceptions differ in Western and non-Western cultures? Can individual and collective traumas ever be “fixed,” or do certain wounds defy the notion of repair? In “Reason’s Oxymorons,” French-Algerian artist Kader Attia surveys how different cultures, societies and disciplines grapple with questions of loss and damage.

Over the last several months, architecture students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts have planned, fabricated and installed a 100-foot-long public sculpture at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

Artist Kari Varner examines the resiliency of nature, the specificity of place and the limits of our own perceptions.

Through her blog, Scary Mommy, and two parenting books, best-selling author Jill Smokler (right), BFA ’99, takes a look at parenting in all its irritating, sleepless, joyful and hilarious glory.

The dream of flight has powered some of the world’s most ambitious feats of design and engineering. Last week, first-year architecture students put their own aeronautical experiments to the test, launching from the top of Art Hill in Forest Park.

Architect and urban designer Anu Samarajiva is deeply attuned to the particularity of place and to the ways social networks shape our experience of the built environment. She graduates wanting to help people think about how social, political and economic systems impact their lives.

Over the last four months, students in the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis have digitally designed, modeled and constructed prototypes for a 100-foot-long public sculpture. Now, over the next several weeks, the students will fabricate and install the finished piece, titled “Spectroplexus,” at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

In “Grieve,” Sagar Brahmbhatt depicts bereavement as a kind of delayed reaction — a time bomb that never really stops exploding. Evan Gates’ “Floor is Lava?” is a slyly pointed examination of adult responsibility. Later this month, both films, created entirely by Washington University students, will be screened as part of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

Internationally acclaimed baritone Nathan Gunn will perform works by Henry Purcell, Benjamin Britten, Dominick Argento, Roger Quilter, Ben Moore, Iain Bell and Charles Ives May 5 as part of Washington University’s inaugural Great Artist Series.

While his Japanese-American family was interned in California during World War II, Gyo Obata, one of the world’s leading architects, found a welcoming place to learn and thrive at Washington University.