Evyn Kropf
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This post is by Remy Djavaherian (BA in Middle East Studies / Persian Visual Culture, University of Michigan, 2025), drawn from his work with an album from the Islamic Manuscripts Collection during the 2024-2025 academic year.
Dual Letters Illusion Nameplate - a nameplate for a class professor, where one side has the class name, and the other has the professor's name.
The Stamps MFA Cohort ‘25 created an artist catalogue titled stop-loss, documenting our thesis exhibition. The idea was born from a collective desire to bring our projects to print while understanding our work within the context of contemporary art theory. The book features seven second-year Stamps MFA students: Hannah Buchanan, Sam Griffith, Andy Maticorena Kajie, Laura Mackie, Okyoung Noh, Charlie Reynolds, and Darren Spirk. Each artist has four pages featuring photographs of their thesis exhibition in the Stamps Gallery. Wall text from the thesis show is juxtaposed alongside exhibition photos taken by Andy Maticorena Kajie. In addition to the MFA students, we also asked Stamps faculty, staff, and collaborators to contribute writings that analyze how the theses connect to each other and our current socio-political climate, including themes such as loss, climate futures, identity, politics, and landscape. The catalogue itself is about 50 pages, designed by Detroit-based designer Emily Anderson with the inclusion of thesis exhibition graphics by Sam Griffith. Detroit’s Inland Press printed 150 copies of the 5.5” x 8.5” saddle-stitched catalogues. This project is a way for us to reflect on and examine our work and the work of our peers, which merge visual practice with critical inquiry to foster dialogue.
The William L. Clements Library; the University of Michigan Library, Special Collections Research Center; and the U.S. at 250 program invite you to join a three-part series titled "Drinking the Revolution," exploring the role of beverages in Revolutionary America and the Early Republic. The first lecture will take place on Thursday, Jan. 22nd, 4-5:30pm in the Hatcher Gallery. Join us in person or via zoom.
The Asia Library hosted three Third Thursday open houses in Fall 2025, showcasing visually and intellectually inspiring, and even somewhat whimsical, materials on East Asia.
Wood engraving of Mickey Mouse and Friends as a wall decoration.
Commodity production drives roughly 27% of global deforestation1. This loss accelerates biodiversity decline, degrades soils, and undermines forests’ capacity to sequester carbon. In response, governments are increasingly turning to market-based environmental governance mechanisms to curb deforestation in global supply chains. Notable examples include New York State’s proposed Tropical Rainforest Economic & Environmental Sustainability (TREES) Act and the European Union Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR).
The EUDR, expected to enter into force in December 2026, will require producers of deforestation-risk commodities to provide polygon-level evidence that their products are deforestation-free. While these policies are designed to advance environmental goals, they also raise urgent questions about equity and inclusion in global supply chains.
At the center of these concerns are smallholder farmers. Small-scale and family farms manage approximately 87% of the world’s agricultural land2. In many deforestation-intensive value chains—such as timber, beef, and palm oil—smallholders make up a substantial share of producers3-5. Yet these actors often lack the financial, technical, and administrative capacity to comply with stringent traceability and verification requirements. As a result, many fear exclusion from global markets as sustainability regulations take effect.
This raises a critical question: Will well-intentioned deforestation governance inadvertently reinforce existing social inequities by pushing smallholders out of global supply chains?
The EUDR, expected to enter into force in December 2026, will require producers of deforestation-risk commodities to provide polygon-level evidence that their products are deforestation-free. While these policies are designed to advance environmental goals, they also raise urgent questions about equity and inclusion in global supply chains.
At the center of these concerns are smallholder farmers. Small-scale and family farms manage approximately 87% of the world’s agricultural land2. In many deforestation-intensive value chains—such as timber, beef, and palm oil—smallholders make up a substantial share of producers3-5. Yet these actors often lack the financial, technical, and administrative capacity to comply with stringent traceability and verification requirements. As a result, many fear exclusion from global markets as sustainability regulations take effect.
This raises a critical question: Will well-intentioned deforestation governance inadvertently reinforce existing social inequities by pushing smallholders out of global supply chains?