To Scatter or Sow: Diaspora in Contemporary Art serves as a central event for Wheaton’s campus-wide initiative to consider Diasporas: Economies, Boundaries, and Kinship. The title of the show is taken from the Greek root of the word, and evokes not only the dispersal inherent in diaspora but also the potential for rich growth. Framing the multi-faceted idea of diasporas through the work of eight contemporary artists, the exhibition includes video, photography, painting, ceramics and text-based work. The exhibition will be presented both virtually and on the Wheaton campus.
The exhibition includes work by the following artists: Alina Bliumis, Chinatown Pretty: Andria Lo & Valerie Luu, Isabella Cruz-Chong, Patricia Encarnación, Michael Gac Levin, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, and Crys Yin.
Gallery Hours
1:00–5:00 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday
1:00–8:00 p.m., Thursday
The galleries are closed Sunday, Monday, and during college breaks.
Please note: due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the galleries are only open to the Wheaton campus community. All of our programing will be provided virtually as well.
To Scatter or Sow: Diaspora in Contemporary Art serves as a central event for Wheaton’s campus-wide initiative to consider Diasporas: Economies, Boundaries, and Kinship. The title of the show is taken from the Greek root of the word, and evokes not only the dispersal inherent in diaspora but also the potential for rich growth. Framing the multi-faceted idea of diasporas through the work of eight contemporary artists, the exhibition includes video, photography, painting, ceramics and text-based work. The exhibition will be presented both virtually and on the Wheaton campus.
The exhibition includes work by the following artists: Alina Bliumis, Chinatown Pretty: Andria Lo & Valerie Luu, Isabella Cruz-Chong, Patricia Encarnación, Michael Gac Levin, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, and Crys Yin.
Gallery Hours
1:00–5:00 p.m., Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday
1:00–8:00 p.m., Thursday
The galleries are closed Sunday, Monday, and during college breaks.
Please note: due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the galleries are only open to the Wheaton campus community. All of our programing will be provided virtually as well.
How can we amplify inclusive, polyphonic narratives based on lived experiences, instead of the perceived authority of academic or fine arts expertise? How might art workers conceive of their role as facilitation for collaborations and conversations about justice taking place outside cultural institutions? Over two online sessions, we will explore creative, curatorial and activist projects focused on toppling hierarchies, empowering BIPOC voices, reimagining history, and centering the voices of historically marginalized authors and creators. Hear more about cultural initiatives locally and internationally—making change now.
Information on conference program and participants.
This event is being presented virtually via Zoom.
Registration for Friday, 10/22
Registration for Saturday, 10/23
Please note: there are separate registration links for each day of the conference.
This event is sponsored by the Evelyn Danzig Haas ’39 Visiting Artists Program.
How can we amplify inclusive, polyphonic narratives based on lived experiences, instead of the perceived authority of academic or fine arts expertise? How might art workers conceive of their role as facilitation for collaborations and conversations about justice taking place outside cultural institutions? Over two online sessions, we will explore creative, curatorial and activist projects focused on toppling hierarchies, empowering BIPOC voices, reimagining history, and centering the voices of historically marginalized authors and creators. Hear more about cultural initiatives locally and internationally—making change now.
Information on conference program and participants.
This event is being presented virtually via Zoom.
Registration for Friday, 10/22
Registration for Saturday, 10/23
Please note: there are separate registration links for each day of the conference.
This event is sponsored by the Evelyn Danzig Haas ’39 Visiting Artists Program.
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.
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:
The X Series (xperimental/xperiential/xpression) celebrates Wheaton’s creativity in a multidisciplinary virtual event composed of ‘acts’ created by our community. Spanning dance, song, and film to visual art and theatrical performance, each project responds to the prompt: 2020 and Beyond: Our Reflections. Our Responses. Over the course of this two-night live premiere, we gather to share our creative processes and to present the culmination of that work. Via Zoom, registration required.
Register Here—April 15 (Behind the Scenes)
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.