Now Cleveland! – September 2019 at moCa Cleveland

The good news– After a long hiatus, The Art of Black Dissent, will be back in action this September in Cleveland, Ohio.

Gabriella and La Tanya will share their collection and discuss protest art centered on Black Liberation at moCa Cleveland’s “Bound and Loaded” event on September 6th at 7 pm and September 7th at 1 pm, 11400 Euclid Heights Blvd, Glenville South (University Circle). The event is free.

Cleveland area friends – please join the discussion!
Some background info: The Art of Black Dissent is a traveling exhibition of artworks (mainly prints, photography, artist books, and ephemera) that Gabriella Svenningsen and
La Tanya S. Autry share via temporary installations at community spaces. Using the Socratic questioning method, they ask participants to reflect on and discuss racism, history, and current events in relation to the works of art on view. They first started this program at Yale University Art Gallery in 2016.
Participants, who have been high-school aged to senior citizens, have been enthusiastic about the interactive nature of the program and the ability to discuss complex and pressing social issues with other community members.
As it was quite popular, Gabriella and La Tanya expanded the reach of the initiative. Using their own collection of art objects (which is of course far more modest than Yale’s collection – they aren’t rich!, but still powerful), they started taking the pop-up to New Haven high-schools and libraries in 2017.
La Tanya and Gabriella love offering this program. Despite life interruptions caused by La Tanya’s moving across country for employment, years later they keep doing this work. It’s really one of the best things that they have ever done.

Cleveland area folks: Please tell your friends about the sessions and join us if you can.
September 6 – 7, 2019
We want to build freedom with you!

The event info is now on moCa’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2373317482880862/.

 

Informational video: https://vimeo.com/artstuffmatters/theartofblackdissent (1 minute)

 

Brooklyn Love – Sisters Edition 2018

The Art of Black Dissent popped up at the Black Girl’s Project Sisterhood Summit in Brooklyn last summer. This session focused on Black women leaders. The young leaders who attended this session from Tuff Girls 215, a Philadelphia youth activist group, thoroughly impressed me.  They are informed and committed to Black liberation. I wish I had been so knowledgeable at their age. I wish these young women all the best and I can’t wait to vote for them.

This country needs their love and fire!

We’re Back! The Art of Black Dissent at Stetson Library November 29th

Our pop-up exhibition and dialogue program The Art of Black Dissent returns Wednesday, November 29th to New Haven’s Stetson Library at 6 pm.
200 Dixwell Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511

We are happy to share our collection with the Dixwell community once more.
Join us if you can!

 

 

Image credit:
To Do Justice: The Heroic Struggle for Human Rights, 1965; Francis Mead, F.T.P., 2017; Dalila Paola Mendez, Food Justice, 2016; Francis Mead, Frantz Fanon Wisdom, 2017; Norman Rockwell, The Problem We All Live With, 1963; Naomi Moyer, Black Women & Self Care: Thoughts on Mental Health, Oppression & Healing, 2015; Sons & Bros, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, 2016; A Man Was Lynched Today, c. 1936; Vision & Justice, Aperture, Summer 2016, Black Panther 1, 2016; Essence May 2017; Tyesha Thomas, Ten Things You Hate About Anita, 2016

 

PDF: The Art of Black Dissent-flyer-StetsonLibrary-11-2017

Making Freedom Real

The Art of Black Dissent is one of the best things that we’ve ever created.
Over this past spring and summer, we collaborated with many New Haven area teachers and librarians to transition our project to non-museum community spaces. The students and other community members who participated in our sessions regularly shared insightful perspectives. So while our nation is embroiled in several crises at this moment, the responses and support we’ve encountered has made us feel hopeful about the future. Through working together, we can, as writer James Baldwin charged, make freedom real.
We’ve produced a short 1 minute video to highlight some of our favorite moments.

 

 

 

 

June 14th at Stetson Branch Library

Hope to see you!

*limited to 25 participants

Spring into Action

The Art of Black Dissent has been going strong this spring. We’ve been popping up all over New Haven.

New Haven Academy – March 2017

 

 

 

Institute Library – April 2017

 

Citywide Youth Coalition, New Haven Free Public Library – April 2017

 

Yale University, “Storytelling, Social Justice and Public Humanities,” American Studies class – April 2017

 

Metropolitan Business Academy – May 2017

 

The Art of Black Dissent, Women’s Rights Activism, and Nasty Women New Haven

The Art of Black Dissent, What Does Black Protest Look Like?, 2017, mixed media, 22″ x 30″

We were happy to participate in the Nasty Women New Haven exhibition last month at the Institute Library. As this initiative supports women’s rights, it intersects with our goal of racial justice.

It also encouraged us to consider how systemic gender bias has affected our collecting practices. When we reviewed our holdings, we found that most of the works were by male artists and depicted male subjects. This inequity especially troubled us because we oppose the widespread custom in the art markets as well as scholarly and museum spheres of preferential treatment for male artists.

Multiple factors contributed to our collusion in the disparity. As many of the objects in our collection relate to the 1960s, the tendencies of history colored our collecting practices. Scholarly accounts and documentary photography of the movement frequently spotlight men. Many of the signature photographs of the 1960s feature male leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Huey Newton, and Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture. Even today when artists appropriate those images and mix them with the new content they often re-inscribe gender imbalances in representation.

Dalila Paola, Food Justice, 2016
giclee print, 8” x 10”

When we responded to the Nasty Women New Haven exhibition’s call for participation, we began tearing our way out of this web by purposefully acquiring more works by women artists and representations of women. This clarified vision now shapes our ongoing activities. Now that we’ve heightened our awareness of this habit of inequity, we’ve joined the growing trend to center the organizing and achievement of women leaders.

Keep Going: Inspiration from Black Women Leaders

In our troubling times, it’s good to strengthen ourselves by reading the work of great thinkers and organizers.
As we honor Women’s History Month, we’re reflecting on the perspectives of some of our favorite  black women leaders.

Download our Keep Going flyer.

Freedom Cannot Rest, Remembering Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin (1995-2012) was murdered five years ago on this day, February 26th. He was seventeen years old.

This print by Ricardo Levins Morales features a poignant quote from civil rights organizer Ella Baker –
“Until the killing of black men, black mother’s sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.”

Related articles:

Benjamin Crump, “5 Years After Trayvon Martin’s Death, What Has Nation Learned,” USA Today, February 23, 2017.

Mychal Denzel Smith, “A Host of New Groups are Reviving the Grassroots Fight for Racial Equality,” The Nation, August 27, 2014.

 

Going Live in New Haven

During the fall and winter we acquired various works of art for our collection. Now that we have catalogued most of our new holdings and have made even more contacts with New Haven teachers and librarians we’re ready to share the pop-up in New Haven. We’re starting out in high schools. To see what we’re spotlighting, check out The Art of Black Dissent checklist.

 

 

Art in this shot: Criminal Justice Reform Now by Chip Thomas @jetsonorama; Spectres of Liberty by Dara Greenwald, Olivia Robinson, and Josh MacPhee @jmacphee; A Man Was Lynched Yesterday; and Silent Protest Parade on Fifth Avenue, New York City