DENTON (UNT), Texas — University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design’s Lauren Cross, lecturer in interdisciplinary art and design studies, and art education doctoral student Ellie Ivanova were selected to be 2018 visiting artists for the Dallas Museum of Art. The Center for Creative Connections – or C3 – invites artists from a variety of disciplines to participate in the development and facilitation of educational programs and spaces at the Dallas Museum of Art. The DMA has been selecting a variety of talented visiting artists since 2009.

Ivanova will be the visiting artist from May through August. She has proposed a participatory project in which DMA visitors will contribute drawings of current, lost, favorite or dreamed homes that she will then use to create imagined neighborhoods in which gentrified areas are questioned and McMansions and humble structures coexist.

“The theme that I proposed – called Home – is important for me as an immigrant and citizen of a community that has suffered displacement for various reasons, as well as rapid urban change,” Ivanova said.

Cross will be the visiting artist from September through December and plans to connect with visitors of all ages who visit the Center for Creative Connections.

“I am excited to create an interpretive body of work as well as a series of programs that will allow me to connect with visitors who are just as interested in engaging with the DMA collection as I am,” Cross said. “I also look forward to creating educational programs that will be able to serve very diverse visitor needs, which is something that is very important to me.”