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Kasumi was awarded a $44,000 Guggenheim Fellowship to fund an experimental feature-length film/video art hybrid. She is one of only 180 international scholars and artists chosen for this coveted fellowship among a field of 3,000 applicants.

“The Cleveland Institute of Art is so proud to have our accomplished colleague Kasumi receive this award. It is the gold standard among recognitions for excellence in scholarship and the arts and spotlights the quality of our faculty’s work and their contribution to the nation’s culture,” said CIA President Grafton Nunes. In addition, CIA’s Artist-in-Residence Beth Campbell was awarded a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship in the category of Creative and Fine Arts.

Since 1925 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded fellowships through a rigorous selection process to a diverse group of scholars, artists, and scientists. Recipients of this prestigious award must demonstrate exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.

“Receiving a Guggenheim validates my work that hasn’t followed a traditional trajectory,” says Kasumi, an associate professor in CIA’s T.I.M.E.-Digital Arts department. She will hire a team of CIA graduates to collaborate on the project that involves animation, music, and video.

Also this year, Kasumi was awarded a $20,000 Creative Workforce Fellowship from Cleveland’s Community Partnership for Arts and Culture. Recently, she earned a Vimeo remix award and produced her first feature film, Aardvark, which was screened in dozens of film festivals around the world. Her work also includes commissioned pieces for New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC).

In addition to being an experimental video and film maker, Kasumi is a musician who has performed twice at Carnegie Hall and who has recorded four LP albums; a theatrical production designer, and a published author. While in Japan, her soundtrack performance of Oginsama, starring Toshiro Mifune, was nominated for an Academy Award.