African American author, columnist, and public speaker Deesha Philyaw will read from her debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, which won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award in fiction.
This event will also be available virtually via Zoom, register here.
Patricia Encarnación and Crys Yin will share their artwork and discuss how their art practice connects with their activist work. Yin’s paintings, drawings and sculptures deal with cultural misconnections and embrace the comedic side of personal experiences. Encarnación is an Afro-Dominican artist who explores perceptions of being Caribbean through quotidian objects, landscapes, and the aesthetics she was exposed to growing up in her homeland, the Dominican Republic. Both artists have work currently on display in To Scatter or Sow: Diaspora in Contemporary Art in the Beard and Weil Galleries. Join us on zoom for the virtual presentation and conversation.
Part seance, part collective automatic writing, part investigation of philosophical texts, Ancient Evenings will be a collective spiritual awakening in our own Cole Memorial Chapel. Come and explore the Western Canon through your own subversive and politically aware writing. Discover how you creatively think about rational thinking. Participants should bring a pad of paper and a writing implement. Light refreshments will be served before the event outside the Chapel.
Internationally known organist Peter Krasinski demonstrates improvisational accompaniment to the silent film Metropolis on Wheaton’s magnificent Casavant organ. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to view Fritz Lang’s dystopian masterpiece and Mr. Krasinski’s live performance—which promises to be as close as one could get to one from the 1920’s.
Please note: This event is open to the on-campus Wheaton Community only.
The phrase Lakou Sanblé connotes a gathering among friends and neighbors. During this live concert the band Eïa!: Christophe Césaire (composer, keyboard, guitar), Christel Coïta (singer), Carole Rosine (piano), and Jacques Bajal (bèlè drum) with special guest Mano Césaire (founder of Malavoi, violin) will perform traditional songs from Martinique, Guaudeloupe and French Guyane.
Join us for a conversation with artists Jessica Fuquay, Kara Güt, and jazsalyn from the 2021 Wheaton Biennial, an open-call exhibition focused on new media and juried by author and curator, Legacy Russell. Presented virtually, this exhibition includes artists whose work challenges and celebrates new media. As with past Biennials, our definition is boundary-pushing and inclusive, seeking a diverse range of experimental work, collectively evoking an open-ended conversation.
Jessica Fuquay is a Colombian American interdisciplinary artist, composer, and DJ currently based in Pittsburgh, PA. She makes videos, performances, and sound compositions that activate the embedded histories of specific sites and events through sustained observation, listening, and sometimes intervention. She is currently a second-year MFA Candidate at Carnegie Mellon School of Art in Pittsburgh, PA and has participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, ME and Project Row Houses in Houston, TX.
Kara Güt‘s work investigates the new shape of human intimacy formed by internet lifestyle, constructed detachment from reality, and the power dynamics of the virtual. Using image and screen-based media, she questions ownership of digital spaces and how they mirror or perpetuate oppressive systems. The resulting pieces are subversions of power: at times manifesting as imperfect relics attempting to perform a hidden and ineffable magic, or long-form video essays haunting the devices they inhabit. Employing tropes of absurdist humor mixed with existential dread, her work pokes at the underpinnings of internet culture by appropriating the subgenres of the post-digital patriarchal industrial complex.
jazsalyn (she/her), work begins where fiction and reality collide. As an anti-disciplinary artist, she weaves together new media and activism as methodology to decolonize and re-indigenize the future of art, design, and social practices.
As the Creative Director of black beyond, a radical platform for artists and activists to define alternate realities for Blackness, jazsalyn collaborates with BIPOC and non-BIPOC co-liberators to reconstruct, reclaim and reimagine Black (Indigineous) narratives.
Her work has been featured in publications such as CULTURED Magazine, Vogue.com, The New Yorker, and Huffington Post. Exhibitions and panels such as TEDx Durham and Textiles as a Second Skin at MoogFest.
Contemporary photographer Adraint Bereal, the artist behind the nationally recognized project The Black Yearbook. Bereal’s multimedia collection and physical book speak to the experiences of Black students at the University of Texas at Austin, a predominantly white campus. Via Zoom, registration required.
A freelance writer and editor, Rebecca Long reports on a wide range of topics, including politics, TV, film, literature, and environmental justice. Her writing has been featured in VICE, Bitch Media, Bust Magazine, and Electric Literature. Long’s essay about Stranger Things’ Jim Hopper was Bitch Media’s most-read article of 2019. She currently works as the Digital Content Editor at a women’s non-profit organization and previously held full-time editorial roles at National Geographic Learning and SAGE Publications. Via Zoom, registration required.
Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the X Series. Explore the process of building this initiative, which was conceived by the Department of Theatre and Dance in response to the challenges of our times. Student participants will be joined by members of the production team to provide an insider’s view into the making of this exciting virtual project. Via Zoom, registration required.
Premiere event registration links:
Kevin Huizenga presents a history of his work in comics and graphic novels including his Ignatz Award winning series Ganges. Huizenga discusses his experiences working on a serialized comic and the ins and outs of big and small publishing as well self promotion for artists. Via Zoom, registration required.