Month: June 2020

A Reflection on Alumni Visits to “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship”

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Vashti DuBois ’83
Vashti DuBois ’83 (Image courtesy of Chestnut Hill Local)

This spring, Makaela Kingsley ’98, Director of the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Adjunct Instructor in Public Policy, invited five fellow Wesleyan alumni to her course CSPL 262 “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship” to discuss how they used artistic practice as a vehicle for social change.

In this course, Wesleyan students studied a social or environmental problem of their choosing and designed a hypothetical project to address that problem, thinking critically about how change happens, honing their activism, and building practical skills.

The guests speakers were Laura Stein ’03 of Dancing Grounds, a multigenerational arts space that brings inclusive and accessible dance programs to New Orleans residents; Chris Kaminstein ’04 of Goat in the Road Productions, a New Orleans-based performance ensemble; Vashti DuBois ’83 of The Colored Girls Museum in Philadelphia; Michael Lawrence-Riddell ’98 of The Self-Evident Platform, a digital humanities resource for educators of American history; and Melinda Weekes-Laidlow ’89 of Beautiful Ventures, which centers and supports creative and non-fiction writers who bring the nuanced complexities of Black life into popular culture and discourse.

From Makaela Kingsley:

“I had 24 students in the class this spring. Their feedback about the course showed that our alumni guests were very popular:

The visitors have been fantastic! I love seeing how broad social entrepreneurship is.

Despite the unfortunate circumstance [distance learning due to Covid-19], I enjoy watching the recorded lectures that were clear and structured into business theories and real experiences. The combination of the two optimizes the strategies from the speakers and allow us to apply them in our potential project.

The flow of the class has been smooth and engaging. The mix of conversations and ‘lecture’ makes participating asynchronously feel like I’m part of the class.

I really enjoy listening to stories from the guest presenters. It’s really inspiring to see what they’ve done but also great to have a group of ‘case-studies’ to draw from!

We’re lucky that it’s so easy to bring in guests, and I’m also super grateful to gain some sense of how to make something happen for myself now that I’m entering the real world.

Thanks again to the Creative Campus Initiative for making this possible!”

An Update from Davison Art Center Curator Miya Tokumitsu

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Albrecht Dürer, “Madonna by the Tree,” 1513.
Albrecht Dürer, “Madonna by the Tree,” 1513. Engraving on laid paper. Gift of George W. Davison (B.A. Wesleyan 1892), 1938. DAC accession no. 1938.D1.14. Open Access Image from the Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University (photo: R. Lee).

 

Dear Friends of the Center for the Arts,

This has been a springtime unlike any other at the Davison Art Center, as indeed it surely is for all of you. The coronavirus pandemic with all its social and economic fallouts, as well as the uprisings for racial justice across the globe, are fixing the world’s attention on injustices so entrenched and so pervasive that, for (too) many, they seemed insurmountable problems, or worse, just the natural way of the world. These global events are also deeply personal struggles, and so much is changing so quickly, it can be hard to find one’s mooring in the day-to-day.

Amid so many world-historical developments, it seems almost hopelessly trivial to be issuing this letter imparting the Davison Art Center’s operational and programming updates. Still, I am glad for this opportunity to extend my regards directly to you, to say that I hope all of you are safe and well, and to share some of our news.

In preparation for moving the entire collection of over 25,000 artworks from our current location at 301 High Street to our wonderful new facilities in Olin Library, the Davison Art Center gallery closed its doors for good on November 24, 2019 upon the conclusion of the exhibition Into the Image: Art in Miniature Across the Centuries. Our study room closed soon thereafter. In our final exhibition at 301 High Street, we were proud to show some of the collection’s great treasures, including Albrecht Dürer’s Madonna by the Tree, a little engraving both serious and tender, rendered in unrivaled technical virtuosity. We exhibited tiny, gemlike prints by the engraver and goldsmith Étienne Delaune, as well as a whimsical change-of-address card by Hannah Höch, and a sheet of game pieces by José Guadalupe Posada.

Although our physical doors remain closed, I would like to remind you that the collection remains accessible online at the Davison Art Center Collection Search, and that digital images of over 6,000 out-of-copyright artworks are available for free direct download as high-quality JPEG or TIFF files. Please feel free to use these images for Zoom backgrounds, smartphone wallpaper, signs, posters, wrapping paper, decoupage…the possibilities are, as they say, endless.

Along these lines, we have produced a Davison Art Center coloring book, available here for free download, from our image store. We hope it will come in handy should you need a moment of relaxation, a light diversion, or perhaps a meditative activity.

We are already looking forward to the future, which includes opening our new study room in Olin Library once we complete the collection move, and farther down the line, an expanded public gallery.

Thank you so much for your support and engagement with the Davison Art Center. We cannot wait to greet visitors and view art together again, in person. We look forward to staying in touch, and to greeting many of you again or for the first time.

Here’s to a new—and better—normal,

Miya Tokumitsu
Curator, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University

“Calling Out for Our Mothers”

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Eiko Otake with John Killacky (photo by Jean Cross)
Eiko Otake with John Killacky (photo by Jean Cross)

 

Minneapolis-based artist Patrick Scully had invited Center for the Arts Virtual Artist in Residence Eiko Otake and her collaborator John Killacky to screen and have a conversation about their work Elegies, centered around the death of their mothers, on May 29 at a virtual cabaret. Four days before that event, George Floyd was killed by police, followed by protests and riots. It was under this tension that the event took place.

“The murders upset the victims, their families, their communities, and all of us. When our mothers died, we were sad but we were not angry. Now we are angry. We will attend to this anger and we will remember this anger,” said Otake.

Read an edited transcript and view sections of the presentation in Eiko Otake’s Wesleyan CFA Virtual Studio.

Kahlil Robert Irving and Richard Munaba: Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN

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This week we are proud to share Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN, a new collaborative work by Kahlil Robert Irving and Richard Munaba commissioned by Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts (CFA). Right now with cultural institutions closed and physical-distancing in effect most of us can only access culture through our screens. As institutions and artists alike share documentation of works, presentations, performances, talks, and exhibitions all originally intended to be experienced in-person, we at the CFA wondered what it might look like for artists to make new (art)work of the material of the Internet at this time. Kahlil Robert Irving’s artwork Internet Data Collage (Focused eye) (2018) came to mind for its use of the aesthetics of image search engine results. This small and powerful work was included in Irving’s 2018 solo exhibition at Wesleyan in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Kahlil Robert Irving: Street Matter – Decay & Forever / Golden Age. More information on the exhibition can be found here.

Roots of Irving’s practice can be found in assemblage and collage which are early Modern artistic techniques for using or referencing existing materials. Irving expands and adapts these historic methodologies by developing a syntax of contemporary visual symbols that represent the values we perpetuate and enhance through our media consumption. In Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN Irving pairs with artist Richard Munaba who brings expertise with digital artwork and design, as well as a practice that focuses a queer lens on how technology changes and recontextualizes our relationships with each other and our surroundings. Internet Data Collage (Focused eye) (2018) and several other of Irving’s collages highlight and structure images that communicate acts of police violence and civil injustice. Sourced digitally and printed on paper these works served as reference points for Irving and Munaba as they began work on the conceptual and material constructions of Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN. Expanding on the historic models mentioned above, this commission resonates with the dimensional possibilities of sampling—the musical technique of reorganizing or modifying previously recorded material to create something new.

Constructed from found digital materials and presented online, this interactive work is filled with details in constant motion. Even while the Coronavirus pandemic limits our physical connections with others, it opens an opportunity to reconsider how ideas are exchanged and communicated. The artists encapsulate some of the pressures of our experience in this piece by mimicking multiple browser windows—watching videos, video calling friends, scrolling through Twitter, listening to music, etc. The work plays with a heightened sense of fantasy, blending together the trauma, violence, and resistance that are already ubiquitously embedded within media and technology. ‘Safely’ viewed from a distance, Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN brings awareness to our moments of media consumption by reminding us simultaneously of the politics of our attention and its immediate commodification.

In recent weeks we have had to confront the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and countless other Black Americans. Mourning their deaths we are angered by the systemic racial injustice. Black Lives Matter. We recognize that action takes many forms and though we may not all be able to join in body we can show solidarity in other ways. Please consider supporting the protestors and the political resistance happening now across the United States of America. Below are some resources for action, for additional educational information, and some organizations you can support with a financial contribution (if you are able).

Audre Lorde Project – https://alp.org/

Women for Political Change – https://www.womenforpoliticalchange.org/

Reclaim the Block – https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/home

Arch City Defenders – https://www.archcitydefenders.org/

Close the Workhouse – https://www.closetheworkhouse.org/

Next Door  – https://nextdoor.com/?next=/help_map/?is=helpmap&utm_campaign=caregivers

Black Protesters Relief fund – https://www.gofundme.com/f/mo-black-protester-relief-fund

The Bail Project – https://bailproject.org/our-work/

National Bail Out – https://nationalbailout.org/black-mamas-bail-out/

Brooklyn Bail Fund – https://brooklynbailfund.org/

Black Visions MN – https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/

Reclaim the Block – https://secure.everyaction.com/zae4prEeKESHBy0MKXTIcQ2

Southern Poverty Law Center – https://www.splcenter.org/

How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality – https://www.thecut.com/2020/05/george-floyd-protests-how-to-help-where-to-donate.html

10 Ways Youth Can Engage in Activism – https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/10-ways-youth-can-engage-in-activism

Compiled list of bail support initiatives, protest support, petitions, and trans support – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1A3f-20SipegLlS2D-D8JRpJd2IBGmN7eKdfRB6cJHwY/htmlview

 

Kahlil Robert Irving (b. 1992, San Diego, CA) is an artist currently living and working in the USA. Irving was selected to participate in the 2020 Great Rivers Biennial hosted by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, where he will present a solo exhibition following the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, Irving was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant. In 2018, Irving’s first institutional solo exhibition took place at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, and was accompanied by a full-color catalogue with essays and an interview. Currently, he is presenting a large-scale digital collage commission at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio. Irving’s work is also featured in Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work has been exhibited at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; the ASU Art Museum, Phoenix; and the RISD Museum, Rhode Island, among others. Irving attended the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art, Washington University in St. Louis (MFA Fellow, 2017); and the Kansas City Art Institute (BFA, Art History and Ceramics/Sculpture, 2015). His work is in the collections of J.P Morgan Chase Art Collection, New York; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Richard Munaba (b. 1992, Jakarta, Indonesia) is a New York based interdisciplinary artist and designer. Munaba currently works as editorial manager at Holler. In the past, he worked at GIPHY and has exhibited works in New York, Baltimore, Seattle, Canada, and South Korea. He received a BFA in Interactive Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. More information about his work can be found at richardmunaba.info

 

Image above: Kahlil Robert Irving and Richard Munaba, Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN