The Short Shorts Festival opens at McDonough Museum of Art

The John J. McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown State University's Center of Contemporary Art, presents “The Short Shorts” festival Oct. 24 to Nov. 4. A viewing party will be held at the museum 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 25.

The festival will highlight the work of Ilena Finocchi, Illya Mousavijad and Michael Schmidt. The galleries will also display Shona Macdonald's “Flash of Light Illumines a Dark Landscape” and the #notwhite collective's, “#notwhite collective.”

In Illena Finocchi’s first animated short film, “Creatures in My House,” the handcrafted world follows a house full of monsters waking up in this askew home. Discover what the ruckus in the kitchen is about in this colorful nod to film noir and German expressionism.

Finocchi's sculptural work has been exhibited nationally as a celebrated multidisciplinary artist, including Art Basel Miami, SoFA Chicago and the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Additionally, she has served as an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana and the McKnight Residency in Minnesota. Working in public art, she recently completed a grant funded library project featuring a 20'x30' mural and flip book workshop series.

Illya Mousavijad's,“Between a Lost Home” and “A Losing Destination,” is a computer animation film and video piece using 3D scanning and photogrammetry. This animation investigates the depth and limits of exile and migration, particularly in relation to the artist's /Iranian heritage and diaspora. The translation to 3D computer animation aims to explore the concepts of proximity, distance, access and inaccessibility.

Mousavijad is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Isfahan, Iran. He received his BFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and his MFA from the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. He has collaborated with international artists of various disciplines and exhibited in Iran and the US. He is currently a visiting assistant professor in art and technology at the Ohio State University.

Michael Schmidt's two stop-motion animations, “Passages” and “Collapse,” feature events and experiences of employees of AEP Conesville, a coal-fired power plant operated out of Coshocton County, Ohio, from 1957 to 2020. These animations were made as part of a performance that gave voice to the loss of a way of life and paid tribute to the generations of coal-energy the plant produced.

Schmidt holds an MFA in drawing and painting from California State University, Long Beach and a BFA in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art. He has exhibited internationally and is in private collections around the country. Schmidt currently works as an adjunct professor at the University of Mount Union, the University of Akron and is a freelance artist.

The McDonough galleries are open 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday. The Museum is free and open to the public.

More information is available by calling the McDonough Museum at 330-941-1371.