2012-2013 Luce Scholar

Daniel Rudin grew up in a blue-collar community. An early familiarity with labor issues profoundly influenced the trajectory of his career. Daniel studied Industrial Design to help prevent work-related accidents. In 2006 Daniel received a BFA. At the same time, he fell in love with video, and realized that design’s emphasis on the body and its living spaces could be useful in an art context. He continues with work-related problems as his thematic, often taking as a subject labor abuses of the black market. In 2006 Daniel traveled through Central America in order to document parallels between Midwestern agricultural production and chemical application in banana cultivation. In 2007 he collaborated on a documentary video dealing with issues of education, gentrification, and youth incarceration stemming from The Chicago Plan for Transformation. The video became the basis for a peer-to-peer mentoring group called Project M.A.R.R.O.N.S. In 2008 he returned to Central America to make a video on subsistence scavenging. The initiative turned into a short video called “El Fortín,” and became the basis for fundraising to give transportation, roofing, and business financing to subjects of the video. In 2009 he began an MFA in Studio Arts at the University of Texas. He has worked with the homeless community in Austin to produce videos, TV reports, and panel discussions. Daniel is currently working on several projects dealing with the theme of immigration and is producing web content for the local organization “Workers Defense Project.”