Montclair State University Archives

Prof. Christopher Kaczmarek is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and academic leader whose work spans sculpture, installation, new media, performance, and socially engaged practice. He holds an MFA in visual art and an MA in modern and contemporary art history, theory, and criticism from Purchase College, SUNY, as well as a BFA in visual art from Appalachian State University. Currently an associate professor of interdisciplinary art at Montclair State University, Prof. Kaczmarek has served as the head of the Visual Arts Program and as chair of the Department of Art and Design.

Prior to Montclair, he was a faculty member and administrator at Purchase College, where he was the director of instructional support for the School of the Arts and general manager of the Center for Community and Culture. Prof. Kaczmarek’s creative work has been exhibited in China, India, Scotland, Italy, Greece, Ireland, South Korea, and the United States. His works engage with themes of contemplation, embodiment, and connection through hybrid processes that combine analog, digital, and participatory strategies.

Prof. Kaczmarek’s scholarly and artistic activities include presentations at the College Art Association, the International Walking Arts Encounters Conference in Greece, and the European League of Institutes of the Arts in Brussels. He has also contributed to the journal Technoetic Arts and the Walking Art – Walking Practices proceedings. He is active in shaping national conversations around arts pedagogy and academic leadership, and his projects often involve collaboration and community participation, exemplified by initiatives like the Student Led International Collective Exhibition course at Montclair and remote performance collaborations across continents.

His interests include experimental and experiential teaching methods, walking as creative inquiry, labyrinths, collaborative exhibition models, and the inner workings of collective artistic practice. He is especially drawn to understanding how creative groups operate as effective collectives – structurally, interpersonally, and ideologically.

Prof. Kaczmarek’s Fulbright-Nehru project is engaging both traditional artisans and contemporary artists, combining research and teaching to explore and share dynamic practices, and fostering lasting collaborative ties and cross-cultural dialogue between Indian and U.S. artists.

Mr. Jason Strother is a multimedia journalist and educator. As an independent reporter, Mr. Strother has filed stories from dozens of datelines for media outlets like NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC World Service. Much of his career was spent covering affairs on the Korean Peninsula and he sent dispatches from both sides of the DMZ. But in 2021, Mr. Strother returned to New Jersey to shift his reporting to stories that concern disability and accessibility, a beat that is often ignored or misunderstood in mainstream journalism. He then launched Lens15 Media, a news agency that focuses on the disability angle in every story. Mr. Strother’s work is informed by his own experience of having a low-vision impairment.

Mr. Strother is also an adjunct professor at Montclair State University, where he has created several electives in the School of Communication and Media. That includes a course on how people with disabilities are portrayed in the entertainment industry, journalism, and the social media. He has also been involved in cross-campus initiatives to make media and the arts more accessible. Mr. Strother holds an MA in international relations from the Brussels School of International Studies and a BA in broadcasting from Montclair State University. He has also earned a certificate degree in entrepreneurial journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Mr. Strother has won grants from the National Geographic Society, the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, and the NJ Civic Information Consortium.

People with disabilities are disproportionately affected by climate change and disasters. Approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population has a physical, sensory or developmental impairment and as instances of severe weather phenomena increase, so do the risks posed to this already vulnerable community. In his Fulbright project, Mr. Strother is examining how emergency systems can be made more accessible to people with disabilities. During his sojourns in India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, he has been searching for ways to bring down barriers that limit this population’s inclusion in responses to catastrophic events.