Arts & Culture

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.

Documentary filmmaker and The Daily Show senior producer Sara Taksler’s, AB ’01, latest film, Tickling Giants, is about how political satire shook the halls of power in Egypt after the Arab Spring.

When Louisa Rechter, AB ’09, and Alessandra Perez-Rubio, BFA ’09, couldn’t find designer, black-tie attire at a price point they could afford, they decided to create their own line. Mestiza New York, a fashion line blends Filipino and American style, is the happy result.

A rubber tire hangs from the ceiling. A glittering crowd sips champagne. “To minimal art,” a woman toasts, and promptly falls dead. So begins “Gossip,” a satirical who-done-it by Canadian playwright George F. Walker. Washington University’s Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present the sly, noir-inspired comedy April 20-23 in Edison Theatre.