Associate Professor of Graphic Design Belinda Haikes was recently awarded a 2025 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
The award recognizes her outstanding work and is designed to further her artistic goals. Her work, “The Unbodied Landscape,” was reviewed by a panel of peers and was cited “to be of very high artistic quality.”
The series consists of 16 photographs and eight graphite stencil drawings. It showcases the relationship between the history of nuclear development in America and the impact on the landscape and communities.
It is captured using irradiated film and it documents and maps the journey along the I-70 and I-25 en route to the Trinity site at White Sands, New Mexico. The work represents the individuals affected by the testing, the amount of tests conducted, and the duration without American tests shared.
Haikes explained that art is something that takes time, and is not part of jumping through hoops, having to hit community goals or fulfilling requirements.
“Art takes patience and trial and error. Having a grant that supports, recognizes and encourages that through the way art is created is unique and really wonderful,” she said.
As a single mother, Haikes said the fellowship will help to free up her time so that she can pursue her project documenting the invasive species of the Mercer Meadows. The project will culminate into the creation of wallpaper depicting invasive species.
“Having time to make work, especially as a working single parent, is hard to find. I am grateful the state sees the worth in my work,” Haikes said. “I am looking forward to focusing on my research.”
– Emilia Calabrese ’27