RIT Alumnus Wins Fulbright to Ethiopia
Rochester Institute of Technology fine art photography ‘04 alumna Amanda Grandfield is about to embark on a new quest for inspiration and cultural understanding: studying the physical scars of the Hamar people—thanks to a rare win of a Fulbright Scholarship to Ethiopia.
During the past year, Grandfield—a Nathaniel Rochester Society Scholar and Phi Theta Kappa Scholar—has been focusing on a body of work called Scar Stories while completing her studies at RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.
“Besides having an aesthetic interest in scars and photographing them in close-ups, I discovered that people were eager to share the stories behind their scars,” says Grandfield, who hails from Summerland, California. “Many of them had no interest in plastic surgery and viewed the physical incident as a life changing event—like an emotional and psychological boundary that’s crossed on skin.”
As a Fulbright Scholar, Grandfield will leave her family home in mid-September to spend ten months in the Omo Valley of Ethiopia. She will learn how to communicate and live among the villagers—later reporting her findings on her project, The Significance of Scars in Hamar.
“Instead of sensationalizing the traditions of ritual scarring among the Hamar people, it will focus on the people who have created these magnificent marks,” Grandfield explains. “This project will serve as a cultural documentation of this tribal practice.
“Combined with what I’ve done in the United States, I’ll be able to delineate the parallels and divergences of how scars function in two cultures and between individuals.”
The U.S.-sponsored Fulbright Exchange Program, begun in 1946 by Sen. J. William Fulbright, serves as a vital link—academic, professional and personal—between the United States and more than 140 countries throughout the world.
“Amanda Grandfield is the most recent RIT graduate to win the prestigious, nationally competitive Fulbright Scholarship,” says Cathy Hutchinson Winnie, director of RIT’s Office of Academic Enhancement Programs. “In the past three years, thanks in part to the growing commitment to international education at RIT, four graduating seniors have won Fulbrights. Each one has embarked on a year of independent study or research abroad.”
“Amanda’s superb project in Ethiopia with the Hamar exemplifies the goals of the Fulbright program, that international education will increase mutual understanding and encourage empathy between people of different cultures.”
During the past six months, Grandfield has established a working relationship with Professors Jean Lydall and Ivo Strecker of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. The two ethnographers have been documenting the Hamar people for three decades and will serve as mentors to Grandfield and her Scars project.
“Through this Fulbright, the chance to photograph and document the stories behind the tribal, ethnic and cultural influences of the Hamars will be an amazing opportunity,” Grandfield says. “It’s an ideal starting point to my career as an artist and one of those life experiences I could never pass up.”
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
RIT’s Fulbright student graduated in May 2004 from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences (SPAS), one of six schools within the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology.
The school offers associate, bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in photography, science and fine art where students study new photographic imaging technologies and explore disciplines from traditional silver halide to cutting-edge digital and electronic manipulation.
Known for focusing on career-oriented education, RIT and the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences have gained a national reputation for excellence in programs that fully explore the art and technology of photography.
Internationally recognized as a leader in computing, imaging, technology, fine and applied arts, and education of the deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology enrolls 15,000 full- and part-time students in more than 300 career-oriented and professional programs. U.S. News and World Report has consistently ranked RIT as one of the nation’s leading comprehensive universities.