Program Description
The Fall 2020 Art + Environmental Justice Conversation Series brings leading socially-engaged artists from across the country together with Memphis organizers, to discuss the importance of art at the intersection of environmental activism and movements for social justice.
Artist talks take place every Thursday at 6pm, from October 22 - November 12.
This series is presented by the UrbanArt Commission, in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia and Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College.
The Art & Environment Initiative is a public art and environmental justice program launched by Mural Arts Philadelphia in 2018. The Memphis iteration of the program was developed by MAP and UAC, in partnership with Clean Memphis and the Memphis Medical District Collaborative.
October 22, 6pm
Cannupa Hanska Luger (New Mexico)
EACH/OTHER: Kinship, Collaboration, and Environmental Action
What would the world look like if, as humans, we thought of ourselves as companion species? Can acts of creative collaboration help heal broken bonds with the environment and with each other? Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger will explore such questions while inviting attendees to contribute to EACH/OTHER, a participatory fiber installation co-created with Marie Watt. Through EACH/OTHER, the artists plan to create a tactile encounter with critically relevant issues of protection, shelter, reciprocity, sustenance, exchange, power, action, stewardship, wildness, kinship, vulnerability, and ferocity.
Cannupa Hanska Luger is a New Mexico based multidisciplinary artist who uses social collaboration in response to timely and site-specific issues. Raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, he is of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota and European descent. Through installations that incorporate ceramics, video, sound, fiber, steel, and repurposed materials, Luger interweaves performance and political action to communicate stories about 21st Century Indigeneity. His 2016 Mirror Shield Project, currently on display at the Brooks Museum, invited the public to create mirrored shields for water protectors at Standing Rock. Luger is a 2020 Creative Capital Fellow, a 2020 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, and is the recipient of the 2020 A Blade Of Grass Artist Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art.
October 29, 6pm
Shana M. griffin (New Orleans)
Displacing Blackness: Cartographies of Violence in Housing Policies and Land-Use Planning
With a special presentation by Pearl Walker of Memphis Has The Power
Shana M. griffin’s will explore cartographies of racial and gender violence in housing policies as a form of environmental racism. Using the DISPLACED Project as a point of reference, she will discuss policies and practices of displacement, confinement, and disposability in land-use planning and urban development. Shana will share her research-driven and interdisciplinary approach for creative social engagement.
Shana M. griffin is a black feminist activist, independent researcher, applied sociologist, artist, and mother. She is the creator of the DISPLACED Project, an interactive multimedia and public history project that traces the geographies of black displacement, dislocation, confinement, and disposability in land-use planning, housing policy, and urban development in New Orleans. Shana currently serves as Associate Director of Antenna, a multidisciplinary visual and literary arts organization, and is the founder of PUNCTUATE, a feminist research, art, and activist initiative foregrounding the embodied aesthetics and practices of black feminist thought.
November 5, 6pm
Shanai Matteson (Minneapolis)
Shaping Culture Upstream: Artists Collaborating for Environmental Justice
With special presentations by Clean Memphis and Rita Harris, local environmental justice organizer and Board of Directors Member of the National Sierra Club
Shanai Matteson will introduce some creative projects that push the boundaries of what we might think of as Public Art, including Water Bar & Public Studio, a long-term emergent artistic project led by Matteson and a network of others. How can artists and their communities develop collaborations rooted in transformative relationships, and that build toward more just and equitable environmental outcomes? This will be a chance to explore some new ideas and get feedback on the challenges you might be facing in your own work.
Shanai Matteson is an artist, writer, arts activist, and community organizer based in Minneapolis. Whether addressing climate change, resource extraction, or urban watersheds, Shanai strives to create a more caring and reciprocal culture—shifting narrative, challenging hierarchical power structures, and helping her collaborators reimagine and transform the systems these shape. Shanai is one of the founders and co-directors of Water Bar, an art and community space that features the nation’s first tap-water only bar.
November 12, 6pm
UAC and Mural Arts Philadelphia: Frayser, Uptown, and a New Call-to-Artists
The UrbanArt Commission and Mural Arts Philadelphia will announce a new open call for three more public art projects addressing environmental justice in Memphis. Community artists Shari Hersh and Ron Whyte will join us to discuss MAP’s programs Trash Academy and Restored Spaces, and our 2019 Art+Environment artists, Jamond Bullock and Khara Woods, will share their mural projects in Frayser and Uptown. We’ll also answer your questions about the new call-to-artists!
Shari Hersh (Philadelphia)
Shari Hersh is a community artist, organizer and facilitator. She has worked with Mural Arts Philadelphia for over twenty years, where she established the Art Education Department, the Project Management Office, and founded the Restored Spaces Initiative and Trash Academy Program.
Ron Whyte (Philadelphia)
Ron Whyte is a blogger, activist, and organizer. He has worked with Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Restored Spaces and Trash Academy initiatives, and is the administrator of Deep Green Philly, a podcasting and news website featuring environmental and social commentary from a progressive perspective.
Jamond Bullock (Memphis)
Born and raised in Memphis, TN, Jamond Bullock is known for his many colorful and expressive murals. He is also a performance painter for special events under the name Alive Paint. Bullock received a BA in Fine Art from LeMoyne-Owen College in 2008, and has gone on to teach art at Whitney Elementary, and through community organizations like the Carpenter Art Garden.
Khara Woods (Memphis)
Khara Woods is a graphic designer and artist from Memphis, Tennessee. Her work is largely inspired by geometric abstraction and pop art. Since 2015, she has created and collaborated on a number of murals and public art projects, and has worked with organizations including Collage Dance Collective, Broad Avenue Arts District, and ArtsMemphis.
