Contemporary Art Galleries at the University of Connecticut is proud to host the Radical Black Art and Performance Series. The series is a twenty-day digital program spanning the entirety of Black History Month 2021, featuring queer Black and brown artists, scholars and allies who make work, practice or who’s discipline interconnects, interlocks, and makes legible “Négritude: The affirmation or consciousness of the value of Black or African culture, heritage, and identity in art and education.” The goal of this curated programming is to raise awareness of, and cultivate, Black and queer consciousness through rigorous dialogue, film screenings, and guest presentations and workshops from practicing artists and academics in the field. Artist and Performer Arien Wilkerson will lead the series and serve as guest curator/programmer for the project.
UConn Contemporary Art Galleries received generous funding from the President’s Commitment to Community Initiative through the UConn Office of Diversity and Inclusion to make the programming possible. This initiative aims to reduce bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination and to foster respect and understanding among the UConn community.
For more information about the series, including upcoming events and registrations please visit CAG's website: https://contemporaryartgalleries.uconn.edu - the next event is listed below, we look forward to seeing you on Zoom!
2/1/2021
Vault Day 1
Mapping Workshop with Marisa Williamson
5:00pm - 7:00pm
Event Registration
Marisa Willamson is a project-based artist who works in video, image making, installation and performance around themes of history, race, feminism, and technology. She has produced site-specific works at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello (2013), Storm King Art Center (2016), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2016), the University of Virginia (2018), and SPACES Cleveland (2019), and by commission from Monument Lab Philadelphia (2017), and the National Park Service (2019). Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Artpoetica, SOHO20, and BRIC in Brooklyn, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC),Vox Populi (Philadelphia), Mana Contemporary Chicago, Human Resources (LA), and Centro per l'artecontemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato and Stefania Miscetti Gallery in Rome, Italy.
Event Description: To map a journey of imperfect recovery and to provide instruction for others who wish to supplant existing power structures with reparative ones, artists Marisa Williamson and Billie Lee present an interactive workshop inspired by Vault. In this workshop we focus on the subject and the landscape, finding ways to locate shared and intersecting sources of shame in order to build new strategies to resist its corrosive power. Vault takes audiences through the landscape of abandoned and poisonous schools in New England. It is a site-specific interdisciplinary performance that erects new performance spaces out of the ruins of others. To experience this presentation fully, please download the Artivive App for your smartphone. Be prepared to watch the Zoom presentation on a computer, with your smartphone on hand. Leading up to the presentation, registered participants can access a PDF of the map at www.howdoyouvault.com.
For more information, contact: Luke Seward at luke.seward@uconn.edu