Since it began in 2022, the JustArts fellowship has been offering University of Arizona students from diverse backgrounds the funding and support to pursue a project that they dream of.
Through this opportunity, students ranging from undergraduate to Ph.D. have embarked on a wide range of creative endeavors.
Nagasriya Ramisetty, a junior double majoring in physiology and medical sciences and applied humanities, showcased her project, “bit·ter·sweet.” Through digital art and poems, Ramisetty sought to explore mental health stigma in Asian American communities, a topic very dear to her.
“It’s really inspired by my own personal experiences,” Ramisetty said. “It’s a poetry collection written by me and the artworks are done by me. I also really wanted to give space to humanize discussions of mental health within Asian American communities.”
After taking on a one-year public health research project, she translated her findings into a more approachable, artistic format. Ramisetty initially fell in love with poetry and medicine independent of each other. After taking a class from UA professor Claire McLane that used poetry as a medium to explore ideas of identity, place and culture, she applied that lens to healthcare.
“The intersection of that class really allowed me to explore creative writing in an entirely new format as I was becoming increasingly interested in mental health and Asian American mental health,” Ramisetty said. “I attended a high school that had a very high Asian American population, and I attended high school during COVID, so I was actually seeing mental health stigma, mental health needs and infrastructure kind of play out in front of me in high school. That was something that led to a lot of my mental health advocacy, both in high school and now carrying into college.”
McLane has helped Ramisetty through the project, serving as her mentor. On April 17, Ramisetty showcased her work at the Health Sciences Innovation Building. More information can be found on the bit·ter·sweet RSVP form.
When Nikolas Sanchez, an applied intercultural arts Ph.D. student, started working at CATalyst Studios, he was surprised by the amount of polylactic acid waste produced by their 3D printers.
“I started collecting and saving all that,” Sanchez said. “Then it just started piling up and piling up and piling up. And so when I learned about JustArts, I was like, ‘Oh, this would be the perfect time to actually create a project utilizing all this trash that we’ve saved.’”
Since last year, he has been working on “PLAing With Trash: Turning 3D Printing Polylactic Acid Waste into Art,” using the byproduct waste of 3D printing to create sculptures.
A trained sculptor, plein air painter and muralist in his own right, he created community workshops to build sculptures. With those workshops, Sanchez hoped to foster community and push back on the perceived barrier of entry to artistic expression. Using an unorthodox medium and recycled materials, his goal was to show that people can create art without expensive materials, he explained.
One of the early big projects Sanchez did through the fellowship was a large black sphere in the style of the Times Square Ball at the request of the MLK Dream Student Space. He programmed the ball to light up and countdown to kick off their annual Black Ball gala.
Soon after, Sanchez hosted his first workshop, where they created close to 200 ornaments for UA President Suresh Garimella’s Christmas party, according to him.
Honoring his Mescalero Apache heritage, the second big iteration was using the recycled material to create baskets.
“I was driving back to our reservation, and I saw all of these plants on the side of the road that the Department of Transportation just kind of plowed up to like expand the road or do some road construction or something or other,” Sanchez said. “I was starting to think about how these traditional basketry materials were just being thrown away like trash, and here we were throwing away all this PLA like trash, so I thought about making baskets out of the 3D printing filament.”
The final portion of his project came in the form of community sculpture activity at the TENWEST Festival. Sanchez left out instructions and the materials, and as people arrived, they were able to add on to the sculpture and ultimately complete it.
“With this project, I think the thing that I want people to think is, ‘What the heck is that?’” Sanchez said. “I really want them to get that level of curiosity to kind of do a closer inspection, so that it’s not immediately known, like, ‘Oh that’s this bronze sculpture or that’s like an oil painting.’ And so when they look at it, they’re like, ‘What the heck?’ And that like draws them to kind of engage with it more critically rather than just walk past it.”
The application window for the 2026-2027 JustArts Fellowship closed on April 3, and the next round of fellows will be announced soon.
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