A Year in the Fulbright Life: Raed’s Story

For the next year, Fulbright MENA will be showcasing a handful of students as they study in the United States with their new series, A Year in the Fulbright Life. Each month, spotlighted students will share an update as they continue on their Fulbright journey.

August 2021

I ended the last month of the summer by travelling to California with two friends of mine. We were able to visit various famous locations in L.A. such as the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign, and Santa Monica. We also rented a car and drove to Sequoia National Park where we explored some of the oldest and biggest trees on the earth!

September 2021

I meet with international students at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) every week to share updates and talk about what each one of us is working on for our art pieces. We also share our concerns and questions with each other, and help each other with solving them if possible. During the fourth week of September, we organized a trip to one of Minneapolis’ lakes, where we had pizza while talking about life! It was a nice to catch up and spend time together!

Every year, the MFA program at MCAD organizes an event where MFA students showcase their work and creations. All current students bring their best paintings, drawings, installations, videos, or any artwork they want to share with the public. This event is called the “MFA Fall Show.” This year, I

participated with a video animation submission. The animation was projected on the building’s wall for the visitors to watch. It’s so cool to watch your animation being projected in front of hundreds of visitors and artists!

I’ve heard a lot about the state fair since I came to the United States, and this year I got the chance to experience it! It’s cool to see such a large space and try all the different things located there. Hundreds of vendors came from all across Minnesota to make different types of food, drinks, and sweets. There were also multiple carnival games, which I was able to participate in and even won a plushie from one of them!

It’s a unique experience to attend a renaissance festival because it will immediately take you back in time to the old ages. That’s what happened to me when I attended the Minnesota Ren Fest. For a while I forgot that I live in the age of technology and was convinced that I needed to fight dragons and save the castle! The festival has a unique architectural design and structure, allowing you to get lost in the crowd and forget about time. Everyone is dressed in costumes and playing the roles, and I did the same!

October 2021

Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) organized a trip for students to go to Valley Fair, an amusement park near Minneapolis, where the whole park was decorated with the Halloween theme “Valley Scare.” It was a cool experience to be in a simultaneously fun and scary environment. The lights, pumpkins, clowns, fog, and scary sounds made everything more thrilling and exciting!

During an event organized by MCAD, I learned how to carve a pumpkin with tools that my university provided. I didn’t have any prior experience carving a pumpkin before, so I was just focused on having fun. The final result turned out to be pretty good! I was interested in trying a different facial design compared to everyone else, and it was definitely different from my peers’.

I didn’t plan for Halloween in advance, so I wasn’t sure if I would have time to make a Halloween costume. Instead, my girlfriend helped me paint my face as a skull. It looked so good, I ended up scaring a lot of kids!

November 2021

After working for two months on a stop-motion animation film, I got to show it for the first time in my critique class. I was honored to have Luis Fitch, an amazing artist in Minneapolis, as a visiting artist to discuss my work. We had a long and productive conversation that helped me tremendously with my vision and choices as an artist.

I was so happy to know that MCAD was organizing an Arabic lettering workshop for non-Arabic speakers. Even though the workshop was mainly targeting beginners to show them how they can write in Arabic, it was interesting to attend as a native speaker since it had been a long time since I’ve seen or written in Arabic. The workshop was led by Wael Morcos, a Lebanese lettering artist based in New York. It was so wonderful to participate in such a workshop since I am the only Arab person in the MFA program.

This was my first time experiencing Thanksgiving with an American family. My girlfriend’s family invited me to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice to see how families gather for such holidays, and how they support and help each other. The dinner was so delicious — probably the most delicious food I’ve had in the past year!

I participated in a workshop that was organized by a local print shop. During the workshop, I learned how to make prints manually on both paper and fabric. I learned how to create a customized design (Arabic calligraphy forming the state of Minnesota) and printing it on various sweatshirts and t-shirts.

December 2021

In July of 2020, I attended the Fulbright Pre-Academic Program that was hosted virtually by Syracuse University. After the program, I was considered a Syracuse “alumnus” even though I was never physically there. Since then, I have kept in touch with the other Fulbrighters I met during the pre-academic program who also study there. One of them is a Fulbrighter from Nicaragua who invited me to spend a few days with him in Syracuse and explore the city. It was amazing! Being able to see the school I am affiliated with in-person for the first time felt incredible. I made a lot of new friends and met multiple Fulbrighters from different continents.

While I was in Syracuse, I attended a few events on campus. I went to a movie night, a pancake breakfast to relieve some stress from exams, and a comedy show by Adam Grabowski. It was my first time attending a comedy show, so it helped me relax after the exhausting last weeks of the semester.

After going back to Minneapolis, I got to celebrate Christmas for the first time ever with my girlfriend’s family. I also got my own Christmas stocking with my name on it! It was a fun experience that helped me understand why Christmas is such an important time for families.

I was able to end the year in the best way by attending an amazing orchestral concert hosted by the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. The musicians’ performance paired with Stella Chen’s violin solo made everyone in the Orchestra Hall applaud with excitement.

January 2022

Living in Minnesota during the winter means seeing snow everywhere! As a North African who did not experience a lot of snow back home, I enjoyed every minute of it. One of the activities that I tried for the first time was sledding. Going down a big hill on a sled is an awesome experience that I will never forget!

I started working as a Teaching Assistant for Media 1 (a class for freshmen) by helping the students learn new tricks about software that is necessary for photo, audio, and video work. Being able to assist with teaching is very helpful for my professional repertoire and allows me to experience new ways of interacting with students through art.

For my thesis project, I am exploring other fields apart from animation, including making sculptures and woodworking. This month was the first time I started using sculpting and woodworking tools. I was granted access to the 3D shop on campus to experiment with creating something new. The staff was very helpful and showed me how to work with insulation foam. After working hard in the shop, I turned my vision into a reality!

February 2022

During the winter months, Minnesota’s lakes freeze and give people room to walk, ski, or play on top of the frozen water. Some artists even use this opportunity to make ice sculptures and organize events on top of the frozen lakes. I visited one of these ice sculptures on Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis, and I was impressed by the quality and details of these ice pieces!

I found myself spending a lot of time at my favorite place on campus, the Animation Lab. This lab is full of high-performance computers available for animators and digital artists. When I spend time there, I am surrounded by other talented artists. This encourages me to experiment and learn new skills and techniques.

March 2022

I discovered a beautiful park south of Minneapolis called Centennial Lakes Park. It features more than 1.5 miles of paved pathways meandering around a 10-acre lake and interspersed with landscaped grounds, formal and informal seating areas, swinging benches, fountains, and sculptures such as “Glamorous Days of Flight” that honors Northwest Airlines.

Three of my classmates curated an art exhibition at Minneapolis College of Art and Design gallery called “Human,” in which they exhibited their paintings centered around human hands. I was super excited to attend it, and I helped organize the closing reception! I was excited to have this experience since it’ll help prepare me for my first show in April!

These are photos of my classmates exploring the first “prototype” of my thesis art project during our critique class. This is the first time I have combined animation with installation! I built this project in a unique way that allows the viewers to interact with it thanks to the very narrow and small spaces inside the installation.

During that critique class, I received a lot of helpful feedback that will make my final thesis art project even better!

April 2022

As an artist, getting the opportunity to curate a solo show is a huge milestone, and I finally did it! I wanted this show to be special, so I decided to make it informative around my identity, language, and experience. This exhibit explores what it’s like to type from right to left in modern software. The exhibition is called “cibarA,” which is how art software would show the word Arabic from left to right.

Inside the gallery, I controlled the viewers’ path so that they started from the point farthest to the right and made their way over to the next piece of information by going left. The exhibition gave some facts about the Arabic language and explained how it worked using animations. It also showed examples of instances where western media did not use Arabic text correctly. Finally, the viewers learned some of the solutions that Arab innovators came up with to deal with this issue.

Before leaving, visitors could find a table of letters that helped them write their name in Arabic.

All of this is connected through a simple design made of calligraphy and dashed lines. I was so happy to see how much Americans were interested in this exhibition. Most of them were surprised at what they learned and were excited to try writing their names in Arabic.

May 2022

I was so happy to find out that there’s a small Tunisian community in Minneapolis! Even though I’m leaving soon, I was thrilled to share a traditional Tunisian dinner with my new friends and talk about a wide variety of topics. It was also a chance for all of us to talk about home and what we miss the most about it.

After working on my thesis for many months, I was in serious need of a break, so I decided to check out Las Vegas! I’ve always seen it in movies and video games; it’s a city with a lot of recognizable and iconic sights. I made sure to buy my ticket early and plan my activities throughout the city in advance. I was impressed by the size of many monument replicas there, such as the Egyptian obelisks, New York City landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, and many more. I was also surprised with the number of slot machines everywhere, including at the airport next to the gates. I stayed at a hostel and met 2 Jordanians who shared the room with me. Overall it was a wonderful experience, and I am looking forward to visiting Las Vegas again.

May is my favorite month of the year because it’s my birthday month! Celebrating my birthday in the United States felt different because I got to celebrate with my girlfriend and her family. The best part of the day was going to a restaurant and I got a free birthday ice cream!

Raed is a 2020 Fulbright student from Tunisia. He is studying Animation at Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Follow updates from Raed and other Fulbright students on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Check back here every month for more updates on the blog and Medium Series to see what Raed does this year!