Transcript for: Faculty conversations: Henry Brimmer

Transcript for: Faculty conversations: Henry Brimmer

[Speaker is Henry Brimmer, assistant professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences]

Brimmer: I came here because some funds were set aside by Dean Salmon, the previous dean here, to hire people to bring back the arts to Communication Arts. In 2007, I submitted a poster to a contest also in Havana, and I got in. It was juried, exhibition and I was part of the people that got in. It was a project where at the end they chose eight American graphic designers and eight Cuban graphic designers and we worked on these projects that basically had a common theme. The common theme was Culture by Design. And since I got in, I had the opportunity to go to Cuba to see the exhibit, and talk about my poster and about my work and get to meet my Cuban Colleagues as well as the other seven American designers.

And while I was in Cuba, I took a walk by the Malecón, the Malecón is like the sea front walk in Havana, very famous, a lot of people hang out and walk around there. And so I had decided to take a walk and photograph every building of the Malecón, it’s about a three quarter mile walk and I would just every hundred, two hundred steps I would turn and take a picture of the houses of the Malecón. And I came back and stitched them together to create one long poster of my whole walk. I took my long panoramic piece and I sent it to a jury contest and it got in. So I’m really happy, if I have an opportunity I’d love to go back to Cuba to see the exhibit when it comes up.

[Produced by Angela Minicuci. Michigan State University. University Relations. Media Communications. 2009.]