The theme of this year’s History of Art Series is Radical Legacies in Contemporary Creative Work. A series of four conversations curated by Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier III of The Black School, focus on movement work from the perspective of Black artists and organizers from major cities throughout the country. These artist-led conversations, spanning from the institution to the individual, trace the topography of arts-based initiatives catalyzed by political unrest, guided by the span of organizing across time and place.
Working between grassroots publishing, public art and community activation, the archival implications of photography, and the materiality of healing work, these artists and practitioners will discuss their activist trajectories, to demonstrate how their individual practices intersect with adjacent movements within the US.
Use #RadicalLegacies to join the conversation on Twitter!
Note: Center for Book Arts will hold this event entirely online. A Zoom link will be sent in an email to all registrants.
About the Program
This panel of dynamic and multidisciplinary administrators, curators, and educators with practices grounded in community-building initiatives will discuss efforts to transform the colonial foundations of traditional art institutions into spaces that uplift the livelihoods of arts workers and the communities they exist within. Each speaker will reflect on the current landscape of cultural institutions’ response, or lack thereof, to the political movements of the time.
Speakers will consider:
- What legacies inform their work?
- How have movements within and surrounding cultural institutions been activated by the design, production and circulation of digital and printed materials?
- What are the intersections and overlaps between emerging cultural spaces which challenge the norms of traditional institutions?
- Consider the familiar phrase of the master’s tools/master’s house, what are the ways we can work toward institutional change within the institution vs. without the institution? Can we use the bones of the institution to create anew?
Note: Center for Book Arts will hold the event entirely online. A Zoom link will be sent in an email to all registrants.
About the Curators
The Black School (TBS) is an experimental art school teaching Black/PoC students and allies to become agents of change through art workshops on radical Black politics and public interventions that address local community needs. The Black School was founded by Joseph Cuillier III and Shani Peters in 2016. With socially engaged artists, designers, and educators working at the intersections of K-12/university teaching, art, design, and activism, all TBS programming is structured around our core principles of Black Love, self-determination, and wellness. Since 2016, The Black School has served over 400 students, facilitated over 100 workshops and classes, produced three Black Love Fests , collaborated with more than 40 professional artists, trained and employed 16 design apprentices, and partnered with over 50 organizations.
