The Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA) will host a series of guest lectures that will highlight speakers who utilize diverse approaches to their creative practice and lead discussions that are vital to the arts and the community.
Meredith Lynn, MoFA’s assistant curator and director of galleries, said that the museum is thrilled to bring these artists to the FSU community.
“Although they work across different media, Earlonne Woods, Nigel Poor, Hank Willis Thomas and Wendy Red Star have all illuminated historic and structural inequalities and shaped our ongoing conversations about the impacts of mass incarceration, colonialism and institutional racism,” Lynn said. “Our students are currently contending with these issues in their lives and in our classrooms, and it is our hope that these programs will inform and uplift the vital work happening in our community.”
These events are co-sponsored by the College of Fine Arts’ Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA) in partnership with the Department of Art and the Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies program in the Department of Art History.
All events are conducted online and are free and open to the public.
A Conversation with Nigel Poor & Earlonne Woods from Ear Hustle
Thursday, Feb. 4, 6 – 7:30 p.m. EST
General registration is open.
Ear Hustle is an internationally acclaimed podcast and the first created and produced in prison. It features stories of daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it.
Co-founded by San Francisco Bay Area artist Nigel Poor, alongside Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams — who were incarcerated at the time, the podcast now tells stories from both inside prison and from the outside, post-incarceration.
In 2020, Ear Hustle was named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting — the first time the category was recognized — for bringing audiences “a consistently surprising and beautifully crafted series on life behind bars.”
Artist Talk: Hank Willis Thomas
Thursday, Feb. 18, 6 – 7:30 p.m. EST
General registration opens on Thursday, Feb. 4.
Hank Willis Thomas is an internationally renowned conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media and popular culture. His photographs, sculptures, videos and public art projects confront histories of inequality and injustice through common visual language. His work has been shown and collected by nearly every major museum in the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Wendy Red Star in Conversation with Jordan Amirkhani
Thursday, March 11, 6 – 7:30 p.m. EST
General registration opens on Thursday, Feb. 25.
Wendy Red Star uses photography, performance, fiber arts and video to recast and interrogate historical narratives. Raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, she draws upon deep research in archives to reexamine primary source photographs and cultural heritage. Her work has been shown and collected by the Met, MASS MoCA, the Portland Museum of Art and the St. Louis Museum of Art. She guest-edited Aperture’s Sept. 2020 issue on Native American photography.
Jordan Amirkhani‘s research and writing reflect her commitment to intersectional feminist critique and the contextualization of issues of gender, class and race within the development of European and American art from the 19th century to the present. She is a regular contributor to Daily Serving, Artforum and Burnaway, and serves as a Professorial Lecturer in Art History at American University in Washington, D.C.
“The arts help us to understand our collective past and to engage collaboratively, creatively, and critically with the issues of our time,” said Preston McLane, director of MoFA. “MoFA is here for you, and we are eager for you to join the conversation.”
For additional information or to register, visit mofa.fsu.edu.