Joe Sussi

This is a photo of me in a community garden plot that I work on with a friend. I am holding, quite proudly, the leeks we grew over the winter months (we made a wonderful leek and potato soup with them).

Degree: PhD, Art History

Expected Graduation Date: Spring 2023

Prior Degrees
BA in Art History, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
MA in Art History, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

2021-2022 Scholarship
Alice Wingwall Travel Award in Art History

I Am Originally From Chatham, NJ

WHY I CAME TO THE UO AND HOW I CHOSE MY MAJOR
I chose the University of Oregon for its exemplary focus on environmental studies, both within the department of Environmental Studies and outside of it. I was drawn, specifically, to work with my advisor, Dr. Emily Eliza Scott, whose work has been a major influence on my research interests for quite some time

I believe studying art and culture have been and continue to be necessary pursuits to more fully understanding the world in which we live. Art, particularly the art that I study and advocate for, is instrumental in both imagining and materializing a more just future. I think many people find this thinking fanciful. However, history has shown the importance of art at the most important junctures of social change. My research focuses on artistic practices that engage with the representation of toxicity and its impact on people and the environment. It is my belief that sharing with others about artistic practices that strive to make a difference is imperative to stirring people to find the importance in simply and truthfully caring for one another, as well as cultivating communities that can enact that change.

UNIQUE QUALITIES I BRING TO MY STUDIES
I have worked with a range of minors in different life circumstances including being wards of the state or in impoverished communities. Those experiences have been very important to me in pursuing my interests in Art History and Environmental Studies.

MY INFLUENTIAL PROFESSORS
Many of my professors have influenced who I am as well as what I aim to do. My advisor, Dr. Emily Eliza Scott, has been and continues to be my biggest influence – not only to study what I study as a model of where I want to go and be. I’ve learned more than I can list here, but I would say my interactions with her continuously remind me how to fail with humility, despite my predisposition to react strongly to my own failures.

MY EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
I am involved in some non-affiliated student organizations that are, indeed, important to me for the sense of community that they instill. With that said, I want to be involved in more, and be more active in my community – perhaps being more active in listening to what people want in their community, and advocating for those needs.

MY GREATEST LEARNING EXPERIENCE AT UO
I took a Toxic Tour with the local environmental justice organization Beyond Toxics as part of a course I took with Dr. Emily Eliza Scott called “Unnatural Disasters.” It was a singular experience in that I learned more about the area I lived in than any other experience I have had in any of the four different cities I have lived in the past 10 years. It was a remarkable experience, and I wish they were able to provide more educational information to the students that live here, even if only briefly during their time at the University.

AFTER GRADUATION
I hope to become a teacher. I want to teach people about art, and invigorate them with the same passion I have for the subject. I want to make people think critically of the world around them and to assist them in developing the skills to continue to do so well after they receive a college education. Knowledge is also knowing how to learn and being receptive to learning. Said as a verb, knowledge and an education can provide students with the ability to continuously be skeptical of the world around them, and perceive structures of power that aim to strip them of their autonomy and absorb them into the very structure that sustains that power.

YOUR GIFT
This scholarship will help me travel to perform valuable research within my field of study by giving me the opportunity to travel, which would otherwise be challenging for me to access.

Thank you, with the deepest of gratitude. This travel award is a wonderful thing to have available for students, and it means the world to me to be able to receive this generous funding.