El Pasoan Ali Dipp ’22, a Brown/RISD dual degree concentrating in English and painting, founded a youth performing arts collaborative, Sunhouse Arts, with her little sister in 2012, so perhaps it’s no surprise that she spent the summer tapping a Royce scholarship to create the stunning online art platform ourworkproject.org, which bills itself as the “largest living archive of today’s Southwest.” Pulling together 250 artists and counting—installations are added monthly—Work Project brings alive the vibrant culture of Southwestern states that share a border with Mexico through work as varied as verbal storytelling, a collaborative mural wall, and recipes. The work “Handling Ice,” above, is one of several by Riel Sturchio, a Maine transplant who teaches photography at the University of Texas at Austin and whose work explores vulnerability, disability, and gender identity. Dipp looks forward to next summer, when she plans to grow the venture with live public events. As for this semester, “hopefully social distancing’s encouragement of an antisocial practice will allow me to complete the two books I’ve been working on over the years,” Dipp says.
