culturalboundaries

Coming in March
Black Studies in Art & Design Education Conference at the The New School

March 26th-27th 2011. Two Day Conference on interdisciplinary conference on Black Studies in Art and Design Education, featuring speakers from art, fashion. architecture, urban planning, art and design history and theory. Organised by Coco Fusco and Yvonne Watkins, Parsons The New School for Design, New York. Presenters include: Craig Wilkins, University of Michigan; Mabel Wilson, Columbia University; Noel Mayo, Ohio State; Carol Tulloch, Chelsea College of Art and Design; Jennifer Gonzales, North Carolina State University; Michele Y. Washington, School of Visual Arts; Kim Piner, School of the Arts Institute of Chicago; Noliwe Rooks, Princeton University; Clyde Johnson MICA are amongst the list of designers, cultural and design critics, and educators presenters.

The conference is intended to be a forum for reflection on the troubling gap between the notable significance of Black creativity in global culture and its lack of presence in art and design education. The goal of the conference is to elaborate and assess strategies of reform that would diversify curricular offerings and thus improve education for all art and design students while simultaneously generating a more supportive environment for Black students and faculty.

Scholars and practitioners in Fine Arts, Industrial Design, Fashion Design, Architecture, Urban Planning and Art and Design History and Theory will engage in an interdisciplinary discussion about the challenges involved in rethinking  curriculum, engaging with historically disenfranchised communities, and recruiting and retaining Black students and faculty. The conference will also feature two keynote speeches by prominent members of the fields under  figures whose efforts have been central to diversifying the many fields that comprise art and design studies. Panels will address the following topics: rethinking art and design theory and history courses in light of the global influence of cultures of the African diaspora; curricular reform in practical courses of art and design; strategies of engagement with black communities; Black student experiences in art and design schools; and the specific challenges of recruiting and retaining Black students and faculty in school of art and design.

photo credit: http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu

Featured above is Cornel West, Professor at Princeton University with talk show host Tavis Smiley.

The fusion of this dynamic duo Smiley & West is slotted to hit the airwaves this coming October with the launch of Tavis Smiley’s  Public Radio International (PRI) an energetic radio program covering thought provoking, intelligent and stimulating dialogue on every subject from news and politics to entertainment and culture. Tune-in one-hour for this weekly show that promises to bring listeners a broad spectrum of compelling guests and I’m sure some juicy debates will jump off between Tavis Smiley and Cornel West.

The State of African American Studies: Methodology, Pedagogy, and Research

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean at the City University of New York extend a call for papers for their regular conference on the state of scholarship in African American Studies. Entitled, The State of African American Studies: Methodology, Pedagogy, and Research, the conference will take place on January 6-8, 2011 at the Schomburg Center, located at 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, located at 365 Fifth Avenue. Complete panels and individual paper submissions related to the theme – broadly conceived – are invited from scholars and graduate students. In addition to papers in your academic areas of expertise, and on teaching and research methodologies, are particularly welcome submissions on labor, community engagement, gender, sexuality, visual culture, and relations in the Diaspora.

Proposals should be submitted electronically and must include your name, title of the paper, panel, or roundtable, and an abstract of 150 words. They should also include the institutional affiliation of each presenter, phone numbers, and email addresses. Submit proposals by November 1, 2010 to:

Aisha al-Adawiya
State of African American Studies
Schomburg Center For Research in Black Culture
515 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York NY 10037-1801
E-mail: aaladawiya@nypl.org

Please consult the Schomburg Center’s website for information on travel and hotels.
Registration $20, Students: Free

On Ted.com excerpt:

Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on the creative spirit and her model for writing through creativity. Listen how she takes you through her trajectory of  ­premidlife crisis by doing what we all secretly dream of – running off for a year. Her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia resulted in the megabestselling and deeply beloved memoir Eat, Pray, Love, about her process of finding herself by leaving home.

She’s a longtime magazine writer – covering music and politics for Spin and GQ – as well as a novelist and short-story writer. Her books include the story collection Pilgrims, the novel Stern Men (about lobster fishermen in Maine) and a biography of the woodsman Eustace Conway, called The Last American Man. Her work has been the basis for one movie so far (Coyote Ugly, based on her own memoir, in this magazine article, of working at the famously raunchy bar), and now it looks as if Eat, Pray, Love is on the same track, with the part of Gilbert reportedly to be played by Julia Roberts. Not bad for a year off.

Gilbert also owns and runs the import shop Two Buttons in Frenchtown, New Jersey.

“Gilbert is irreverent, hilarious, zestful, courageous, intelligent, and in masterful command of her sparkling prose.”

Booklist

I’m honored to be a part of such a creative group of 25 designers in the show Design Journey: You Are Here, set to open on 20 May, this week at AIGA in NYC. My good friend Rafael Esquer of alfalfa studio is busy racing against time to put the finishing touches on the mural for the exhibition.
Check out some of Raf’s sketches, better yet make sure to see the show to experience his amazing mural artistry.

I called Raf to offer my help along with some of his artist and designer to paint the mural on the wall in the AIGA gallery. And the entire process will be videotaped.

Below of are few more examples of the murals.

You Are Here opening reception: Wednesday, May 19, from 6:00–8:00 p.m. at the AIGA National Design Center. The exhibition was designed by TODA and will be open to the public from May 20 to June 23.

The AIGA/XCD is promoting “Design Is Not Justice,” they are asking designers to become more socially aware of what it means when countries sentence people to death. If you believe that “death” is wrong, then make your voice heard with your design.

Posterfortomorrow.org call for entries launches:

Call for Entries!
Death is not Justice.
October the 10th 2010 (10/10/10) is the World Day against the Death Penalty.
Poster for Tomorrow is holding its second annual poster exhibition featuring 100 exhibitions in 100 cities.
This year’s theme calls for the universal abolition of the death sentence, in the spirit of Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

We’re working with Amnesty International, the Council of Europe, Reporters Without Borders, the World coalition against the Death Penalty and Bianca Jagger to raise awareness of our cause.

In 2009, countries with the highest number of executions were Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. In China information regarding the death penalty remains secret, but estimates indicate that China probably executes more people than the rest of the world combined.*

There is hope – executions around the world are apparently on the decline. In December 2010, the United Nations is scheduled to deliberate on a universal moratorium on the death penalty.

To respond to our call for entries, please visit the Poster for Tomorrow’s website. Be sure to register and create an account in order to properly submit your work. Call for entries closes on July 18, 2010 at Noon, Pacific Standard Time. There is no entry fee.

Selected winners of the Poster for Tomorrow (as selected by the jury) will be included in 100 locations worldwide on October 10, 2010. Their entries will become part of the permanent collection of selected design museums worldwide, and published in the exhibition catalogue.
For more information about the awards, please contact:
Setareh Farsi, press office manager
T: +331 5341 4161, E: setareh@posterfortomorrow.org
*source Amnesty International

Hibakusha Stories Film Festival

Witness to Hiroshima is a short documentary by my good friend Kathy Sloane a photojournalist from Oakland, California.

Just in time for Mother’s Day, so bring your Mom, friends or anti-nuclear family too!

Hibakusha Stories and Maysles Cinema present:
Docs on Nukes — nuclear narratives through the art of film
Maysles Cinema
343 Lenox Avenue
(Malcolm X Boulevard)
New York, NY, 10027
Between 127th and 128th
2,3,4,5,6, A,B,C,D subways to 125th street
212-582-6050

Witness to Hiroshima
Directed by Kathy Sloane, 2010
Running Time: 15:56 minutes

Japanese citizen Keiji Tsuchiya, using his 12 powerful watercolors, recounts his experiences in Hiroshima as a 17-year-old soldier immediately following the dropping of the atomic bomb, and relates those experiences to his subsequent life-long commitment to saving the Japanese horseshoe crab and its habitat. http://www.witnesstohiroshima.com
Witness to Hiroshina Trailer

Post screening panel discussion with filmmakers, Kathy Sloane and M.T. Silvia and Kathleen Sullivan, PhD, Program Director of Hibakusha Stories.And Special Sneak Preview
Atomic Mom
Directed by M.T. Silvia, 2010
Running Time: 87 minutes

Atomic Mom is a documentary about two women, both mothers, who have opposite experiences of the atomic bomb. After decades of silence, a daughter’s quest for truth leads to the exchange of an olive branch between an American Scientist and a Hiroshima Survivor.
http://www.atomicmom.org

As reported in Vogue Magazine

“I’ve always done too much,” Sarah Lewis says in a tone that falls somewhere between self-mockery and pride. Thirty years old and whiplash fit, with honors degrees from Harvard and Oxford under her belt and on the verge of a Ph.D. from Yale, she has two books nearing completion, and is co-curating the SITE Santa Fe biennial, the closely watched art show, which opens next month. Rocco Landesman, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, wants to create a special initiative for her at the NEA in Washington, D.C. She has become a young woman to watch. As her friend Agnes Gund, MoMA’s president emerita, said the other day, “You don’t know what she’ll end up doing—there are so many possibilities.”

Read the rest of the article about Lewis in the May 2010 issue of Vogue at the link above.
Read more about the Biennial here.

The GAP tees are now in stores. After a few delivery issues snafus from their factory, they finally arrived.  I want to thank all of you for your patience and support.
Gap (RED) is featuring a few artworks by Len Davis for their Limited Artist Edition Spring/Summer line. One of the three t-shirt designs are in Gap stores today.  The other two designs will be in stores on May 10th.
Look for the in-store signage for Gap (RED) Limited Artist Edition tees.
All proceeds go to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS in Africa. http://www.joinred.com/Learn/HowRedWorks.aspx

As reported by The National Design Museum

“Ted Muehling Selects” is the 10th in a series of small one-gallery exhibitions in the Nancy and Edwin Marks Gallery. The museum invites guest curators from all around the world to create exhibitions and installations interpreted in their own voice from works in the museum’s permanent collection.

Check out Ted Muehling’s splendid retail shop located in Soho.