The Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), a group of alumni and friends of the Institute who support arts engagement at MIT, sponsors grant programs to support arts projects that engage the MIT community. Students, faculty, and staff are eligible to apply for funding from the Council’s Grants Committee, and students are also eligible to apply for mini-grant funding of up to $500.
CAMIT Grant Projects
In 2023-24 the CAMIT Grants Committee supported 25 projects by MIT students, faculty, and staff. Projects by nine student groups, one undergraduate, 12 graduate students, and three faculty and staff received funding.
The Council also continued the Undergraduate Arts Project Mini-Grant program, which supported 15 projects by undergraduate students and student groups, and the Graduate Arts Project Seed Grant Program, to support prototyping and development of 19 projects by graduate students.
Arts Projects Supported by the Council for the Arts at MIT
The Council’s grants program, supported through the generous annual giving of its members, enable current MIT faculty, staff, and students to undertake a wide range of art projects that directly engage the MIT community.
Balconies, Balconies, Balconies
HONMI: Bryan Hon Ting Wong (SMArchS ’24) and Namhi Kwun (SMArchS, MCP ’25)
An exhibition, installation, and social-learning project that explores the architectural and cultural space of the balcony, examining the dichotomies of outside and inside, public and private, community and individual.
Bit by Bit, I Think I’m Getting It
Gloria Zhu ’26
An installation, zine, and workshop series centered on pen plotting, algorithmic art, and the exploration of data and digital culture.
Brick x Brick: Drawing a Particular Survey
Assistant Professor Carrie Norman & Adriana Giorgis (MArch ’24)
An exhibition of MIT student work from a workshop on the architecture of Robert R. Taylor, MIT’s first Black graduate and the first accredited African-American architect.
Capacitron
Joseph Ntaimo (G, Mechanical Engineering)
A musical instrument and light sculpture that uses capacitive sensing to make collaborative music with multiple performers from all skill levels.
Do Machines Dream of Electric Music?
Duhan Zhang (Postdoc, Materials Science & Engineering)
A performance of electronic music and visual art exploring human and machine interactions in the MIT.nano Immersion Lab.
Insula
Ishana Shastri (SM ’24, EECS)
A short film showcasing experimental choreography by MIT dancers exploring concepts of community, collaboration, and duality.
Footwork 2024, A Showcase Capturing the History and Future of the Boston Dance Scene
MIT Ridonkulous
The 17th edition of an annual dance showcase featuring professional headliners and dancers from around the Boston area, this year hosted for the first time in Kresge Auditorium.
Live AI Radio
Manaswi Mishra (G, Media Arts and Sciences)
A live performance of voice and new musical interfaces that demonstrate how AI can be used to generate and shape music live. The audience is invited to turn the knobs of a giant radio interface to influence and interact with the radical AI music composition and performer in real time.
Living Knitwork Pavilion
Irmandy Wicaksono (PhD ‘24, Media Arts and Sciences)
A modular textile structure consisting of 3D-knitted optically and electrically-active yarns that dynamically change color and light up. Exhibited in the MIT Media Lab Lobby December 2023-January 2024.
Matters of Impermanence: Sculptural Perspectives on Light and Architecture
Dexter Callender III (SM ’24, Media Arts and Sciences)
A series of artworks that transform the movement of natural light within architecture into sculptural forms.
Media/Memory Lab
D. Pillis (SM ’24, Media Arts and Sciences)
An online exhibition and augmented reality experience of the history of the MIT Media Lab based on archival research and memories shared by Media Lab alumni.
Mind, Hand, and Soul
MIT Imobilare
A free jam hosted by Imobilare for breakdancers, hip-hop freestyle dancers, and lovers of hip-hop music and culture. Featuring an open dance floor where people could cypher to hip-hop music from legendary local DJs, the event aimed to spark and further the MIT community’s interest in hip-hop culture, music, and freestyle street dance.
MIT LIVE Showcase
MIT LIVE
A public live performance demonstrating the talents of MIT student musicians across musical genres from indie-pop to jazz.
MIT Open Ballroom Dance Competition
MIT Ballroom Dance Team
A two-day ballroom dance competition hosted at MIT, featuring collegiate teams from around the country as well as world champion headliners. Photo credit: Tiffany Louie.
Moving into the Being Mind: Finding the Grip
Iris Yuting Zeng (M.Arch ’24)
An exhibition in the Wiesner Student Art Gallery and a series of guided drawing workshops exploring awareness and (self-)consciousness through charcoal drawing practices.
Personal Landscapes: From Particle to Planet
Maria Gabriela Carucci and Christina Battikha (SMArchS ’24)
A multimedia exhibition at MIT SA+P and at the 2024 Venice Art Biennale that delves into the intricate terrain shaped by volcanic ash and salt, examining how these textures intersect with human existence amidst our swiftly evolving global climate.
Resonance Fall Concert
Resonance of MIT
An a capella concert with the theme of “Rizz-onance”, a play on the pop-culture term for romantic charisma, centering on humorous explorations of modern dating, romance, and college relationships.
Rhinoceros in Love
Wuming Theater Club
An experimental play by Liao Yimei exploring the blindness and stubbornness of love and the formation of one’s sense of self, performed by MIT students in Chinese with English surtitles.
Rigoletto Workshop Performance
Pocket Opera Productions
A semi-staged performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto by MIT students, staff, and faculty, sung in Italian with English supertitles. Photo credit: Danny Goldfield.
Rune Issue 43: Becoming
Rune
A new issue on the theme of “Becoming” to relaunch Rune, MIT’s art and literature magazine.
Syncopasian 2023-24 Concerts and Album
Syncopasian
Fall and spring semester performances and album recordings by Syncopasian, a co-ed a cappella group at MIT with an emphasis on modern East Asian music.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Life on Stage Theatre (LOST)
Four performances of a time-bending twist on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest produced by Life on Stage Theater (LOST), free for the community.
Urban Mining & Regenerative E-waste Ecosystems
Georine Pierre (SM ‘24, Media Arts and Sciences)
A public immersive installation at the MIT Media Lab Lobby focused on the informal circular economy contributing to diverse livelihoods in Accra, Ghana’s electronic waste recovery settlement— home to over 100,000 local and migrant workers and residents.
Graduate Seed Grants
Arts Seed Grants provide funding of up to $500 to graduate students to support ideation, planning, proof-of-concept development, or prototyping for arts projects whose end goal is to directly engage the MIT community.
AI for Filmmaking Hackathon 2024: “Space I Call Home”
Honghao Cao (G, EECS)
A hackathon for the MIT community focusing on the use of AI to foster creativity and technical advancements in filmmaking.
Bio-material Pavilion Workshop
Vincent Jackow (G, Architecture)
A hands-on workshop for MIT students to prototype a bio-based mobile pavilion using locally sourced, naturally carbon-storing materials: straw, hemp, sheep wool, earth, and cork.
Ceramic Circuits
Sam Chin (G, Media Arts & Sciences)
A prototype of an interactive ceramic tea set that uses material (ceramic and silver) as an intrinsic part of both the mechanical form and electrical design. Possible interactions include lighting up, sensing heat, sensing human touch and producing sound.
Damp Skin: Porous urbanity and individuality
Cheng-Hsin Chan (SMArchS ’24)
An exhibition exploring the symbiotic relationship between the urban environment and its inhabitants, drawing parallels between the human body (60% water), and the city, where rain and humidity are constant companions.
Interactive Reconfigurable Sculptures
Rebecca Lin (G, EECS)
Designing interactive shape-shifting sculptures that leverage synergies between art and engineering research.
Interwoven: The Interdisciplinarity of Sustainability at MIT
Sara Wilson (G, MechE)
An installation of a large origami structure and community loom that explore the scope of transdisciplinary sustainable development across MIT.
Junki Series
Yuki Gray (G, Architecture)
Design and development of sculptural pieces using a technique of casting aluminum as bolts that appear to squeeze materials together.
La Cenerentola Workshop Performance
Pocket Opera Productions
A semi-staged production of Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola by MIT students.
La Danse(WIT)
Cheng Qin (G, Architecture)
Five stone sculptures inspired by Henri Matisse’s La Danse that create an interactive auditory experience triggered by embedded sensors.
Phone a Friend
John Zhang (G, MechE)
An old fashioned rotary telephone that allows the user to hold a conversation with a computer nearly indistinguishable from speaking with a person.
shore/lime/line/light (sketch — (it doesn’t have to be this way))
Aubrie James (SMACT ’24)
Development of an exhibition exploring the materiality of MIT’s landscape and the history of the river shoreline as it changed over time due to ecological change and human intervention.
To Carve a Hum
Juan Manuel Chavez (SMArchS ’24)
A film exploration that captures instances of the cutting and carving processes during the ongoing transformation of the Metropolitan Warehouse construction site (future home of MIT SA+P).
Silent Symphonies: Navigating Geologic Dialogues
Maria Gabriela Carucci, Laura India-Garinois, Mahwish Khalil (G, Architecture)
A series of short films focusing on different elements of nature, cycling through rivers, forests and volcanoes, exploring silent exchanges between the human and the non-human.
Sisters in Making: Prototyping and the Feminine Resilience
Soala Ajienka (G, Architecture) with Deborah Tsogbe (SMArchS ’23)
An exhibition at MIT Rotch Library exploring and revealing the multi-level efforts of women in the invention and implementation of Core Rope Memory and Magnetic Core Memory in the Apollo Guidance Computer used in the 1969 moon landing.
Sonic Pi Workshop with DJ_DAVE
Char Stiles (G, Media Arts & Sciences)
Workshop for the MIT community with DJ_DAVE (Sarah Davis) on livecoding, the art of performing coding as music.
Tasting the River
Christina Battikha (SMArchS ’24)
A consideration of MIT’s river ecosystem through silk screen printing of shoreline materials representing textures, smells, and colors of the Charles River and the changing ecosystem it is witnessing.
Transhumanism through the Art of Drag
Eric Liu (G, IDSS)
A study of the basics of drag performance as a form of activism and exploration of belonging and meaning through self-expression.
Views on Balconies and Otherness
HONMI: Bryan Hon Ting Wong (SMArchS ’24) and Namhi Kwun (SMArchS, MCP ’25)
Development and expansion of a zine project exploring the architecture and perceptions of balconies in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Undergraduate Mini-Grants
Mini-Grants providing funding of up to $500 to undergraduates and students groups to launch a project, test an idea, create a community arts engagement experience, or provide supplementary support for student organization projects that engage the MIT community.
Apricity
Max Tan ’25, Katrina Chan ’26, Jin Wong ’26
A short film showcasing the profound impact of shared laughter, heartfelt conversations, and the enduring strength found among friends during a single, transformative night.
Artistic Electric Mountain Board
Ethan Zentner ’27
Design and fabrication of a skateboard deck carved in a geometric isogrid pattern.
Backgammon Wood Board
Maya Ayoub ’26, Sandra Youssef ’26
A backgammon board made out of wood and inlaid mosaic tiles created based on traditional Middle Eastern designs.
Chicago
Musical Theatre Guild
A production of the musical Chicago by MIT Musical Theatre Guild during IAP 2024.
Chinese Music Ensemble Concert
MIT Chinese Music Ensemble
A concert of music played on a variety of traditional Chinese instruments and western instruments, hosted in February 2024 to celebrate the year of the dragon.
CPW: Campus Polaroid Workshop
A workshop for current and prospective MIT students on the use of instant film and the Single Lens Reflex camera.
Exchange Tunnel
Yanjun Emily Liu ’24
A public interactive installation at Hayden Library that serves as a tool for people to rethink mutual support within the MIT community through acts of giving and receiving.
The Flight of Daedalus // Icarus
Sophia Wang ’24
A research project and material exploration of bio-inspired human-powered flight.
HAIRLOOM
Sophia Chen ’24
A collection of portraits, prints, poetry, and video, using hair as a medium in the exploration of cultural and familial identity.
Legally Blonde the Musical
A performance of Legally Blonde for current and prospective MIT students, hosted at Next House.
Life-sized anatomically accurate crochet skeleton
Kateryna Morhun ’25, Liva Olina ’25, Quinn Perian ’26
A collaborative project by a group of MIT students aiming to crochet every bone and ligament in a life-sized anatomically accurate crochet skeleton.
melia
Matthew Caren ’25
A bespoke electronic musical instrument that explores the limits of a computer’s ability to understand nature in its incredible complexity and unpredictability.
Much Ado About Nothing
A student production of Much Ado About Nothing that maintains the textual integrity of the original play while mixing in elements from the 1960s and 70s to portray themes of inclusion, queer identity, and women’s liberation.
Nepali New Year Cultural Event
MITeri
A cultural event for the MIT community showcasing Nepali culture and featuring performances of traditional Nepali music by professional musicians.
Next Haunt 2024
Next House
A haunted house-themed escape-the-room game for the MIT community, designed and built by MIT students.