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Arts & Entertainment

The Block of Museum of Art’s Woven Being exhibit showcases Chicagoland’s many Indigenous art histories, with more than 80 works of various materials — including painting, basket weaving, bead work, sculpture, photography and mixed media.

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An acrylic painting of humanoid creatures, painted in blue, red, green and tan.
In 2024 interdisciplinary artist Lilli Carré ’16 MFA won a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in the film-video category. Northwestern Magazine asked Carré about the inspiration behind her artwork and what she’s exploring next.

Learn about her art

Lilli Carré wears a red sweater and leans over a workbench in her artist studio, working with clay.
Susan Avery ’90 MS founded the Pacemakers, a dance team fighting stigma around aging. The group has developed a worldwide following.

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Susan Avery, wearing her blue and black Pacemakers uniform and a yellow hat, stands smiling with her hands on her hips in front of a black mural with colorful hearts.
Matt Houchin is breaking records by wearing a Hard Rock Café T-shirt every day in 2024, all in the name of charity. His Hard Rock Shirt-a-thon is raising money for the nonprofit Free Guitars 4 Kids.

Follow Houchin’s journey

Matt Houchin, wearing a white bathrobe, stands at a table covered in Hard Rock Café T-shirts, ironing one of the shirts.
Harris Forbes ’19 serves as associate producer and postproduction supervisor for America in Black. Produced by CBS News in partnership with BET News, the show airs monthly and covers a range of stories about Black America, from profiles of prominent movers and shakers to deep dives into the Black maternal health crisis and the fight to teach Black history in schools.

Read about Forbes’ work

The words BET News Presents America in Black are displayed on a black background.
Our alumni will travel the world for a scoop. Meet the foreign correspondents, filmmakers and producers who are shining lights on stories from India, Colombia, Israel, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Learn about their work

Josh Lederman stands in a desert landscape in Gaza. He is wearing a blue denim shirt, black pants, and a black bulletproof vest labeled ‘PRESS’ on the front.
If you know Greta Lee ’05, you know she’s a bit of a shapeshifter, with almost 20 years of experience in acting roles that span from the dead serious to the drop-dead hilarious. Last year, the highly praised and Oscar-nominated film Past Lives gave Lee her first leading role — and ushered in a new stage of her career.

Get to know Greta Lee

Greta Lee, bending at the waist, rests her elbows on a puppet theater with her head in the window behind the curtains. The puppet theater’s teal body is adorned with gold details, and Lee is dressed in a dark skirt with white heeled shoes.
Julie Plec showed up at Northwestern in September 1990 with big dreams of a future in Hollywood, inspired by everything she’d ever read in Entertainment Weekly and Premiere magazine. Nothing prepared her for life in entertainment more than “tech week” for student theater productions.

Read Plec’s essay

A black and white illustration of a headshot of Julie Plec smiling.
Sarah Wills Carlsson collaborated with fellow alums to publish the ’ittle Bear children’s book series. The books, which follow a stuffed animal who travels the world, aim to increase cultural education.

Read Carlsson’s essay

Katy Wills, Sarah Wills Carlsson, Jennifer Royall Anderson, Jennifer Burke and Valerie Banks Amster pose in front of a fireplace, smiling with their arms around each other while Anderson and Burke hold copies of ’ittle Bear: The Adventures Begin.

Digital Detox

Fall 2024
Where’s your phone right now? Brandon Kondritz, a junior journalism major, asks listeners that question in his podcast episode “The Day I Ditched My Devices,” which chronicles his day as a Northwestern student — completely unplugged.

See how his digital detox day went

An illustration of a person holding their phone over a trash can in an outdoor setting. The trash is filled with icons representing Likes and Messages.