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.
Writer, performer, musician Jillian Walker will work with playwriting students to create a performance ritual drawing from her training as a dramaturg and fromBlack spiritual wisdom and liberation healing practices. Jillian’s own plays and sacred texts for the theatre include SKiNFoLK: an American Show, Sarah’s Salt, and Songs of Speculation. This will be a journey in facing collective truths and building community empathy. Via Zoom, registration required.
New York–based contemporary photographer Jon Henry discusses his career and work. Re-composed with Afro-American mothers and sons, Henry’s photographs from his project Stranger Fruit uniquely reference Michelangelo’s Pietà. This project responds to the frighteningly regular deaths of African American men through police violence. Via Zoom, registration required.
Jonathan Maniscalco has taught English to ESL learners in Japan, Spain, and New York City. A Massachusetts native, he is a graduate of Boston University and a stringer for the New England Review of Books. Ten Stories to Manhood is his first published book. Via Zoom, registration required.
Renowned musicologist Matthew Morrison discusses his recent research, which historicizes the rise of American popular music, performance, and race in the nineteenth century. His talk centers on Blacksound, which Morrison uses as a foil to demonstrate how popular entertainment, culture, and identity have been shaped by the legacy of blackface minstrelsy in and beyond the United States.