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.
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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
Closing this conversation series, these three herbalists and multidisciplinary artists will share their work and knowledge of an essential aspect of movement work: internal wellness. The intersections of their experiences in spaces of ancestral spirituality, root work, community organizing, education, arts administration, poetry, doula work, nutrition, and making of: spells, tinctures, teas, candles, soaps, butters, and hairstyles position this panel as A wealth of insight applicable to every human with a body. In addition to production range, their local bases between New Orleans, New York and Detroit reflect unique regional significance that extend to Haiti, The Dominican Republic, the African continent and the Diaspora broadly.
Speakers will consider:
- What legacies inform their work?
- How does internal wellness serve as their groundwork, and how is it actively propelled in activist movements?
- How does ancestral and spiritual practice relate to tactile production and how does ancestral knowledge inform activist futures through these processes?
- How are the rituals that uplift Black artists and organizers sustained, and how they resist against the ways this important work is often appropriated?
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 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.
