Exhibition
Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, Sable Elyse Smith: Mirror/Echo/Tilt
06/18/19-10/06/19
Conversations · Exhibition-Related
Convening for Contemporary Art, Education, and Social Justice
Cover Image:
A workshop with Kameelah Janan Rasheed during the 2018 inaugural Convening for Contemporary Art, Education, and Social Justice
The New Museum presents its second annual Convening of activists, artists, and educators to exchange knowledge and methods for teaching, learning, having critical discussions, and creating structural change. The summer of 2019 will focus on transformative justice.
The inaugural Convening explored the theme of “Spaces for Learning,” considering where and how learning that actively acknowledges the inequities of systemic power in the social, curricular, and physical architectures of schooling happens. This year, the Convening critically explores transformative justice, looking to best practices that challenge narratives around criminality relative to incarceration, the school to prison pipeline, and how the inequities of the carceral state pervade social structures broadly. As educators, artists, and organizations are increasingly being called upon to reimagine justice, the Convening will provide a space to consider critical, reflective, and transformative visioning and practices.
Aspects of the Convening will intersect with programming related to the annual Summer Social Justice Residency and Exhibition: “Mirror/Echo/Tilt,” which includes a public conversation with the artists and a private facilitated Design Futuring workshop. Each morning will begin with self and community care for educators with exercises for restorative healing for mind and body facilitated by Aki Baker and Sunder Ashni. Each day will include a keynote, offering multiple viewpoints on the role of arts in transformative justice: On Friday, activist and educator Mariame Kaba will deliver a presentation; and on Saturday, representatives of teaching artists and youth participants in the organization Groundswell will offer an intergenerational perspective.
As a noncollecting institution that works primarily with living artists, the New Museum is poised to respond to the ever-present and increasingly urgent priorities related to social change in contemporary art and education. The Museum has published two historical books on contemporary art and education to generate, assemble, and disseminate work in the form of essays, artist entries, and lesson plans: Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education (1997) and Rethinking Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education (2011). Over the last decade, the Museum has continued to actively create content, tools, and methods for employing contemporary art as a resource for engaging youth and communities of all ages in questions and ideas that matter to them. As the Museum continues to make such tools and knowledge available to educators, the multi-day Convening for Contemporary Art, Education, and Social Justice invites artists, activists, classroom teachers, and educators in other settings to share best practices and build community.
Registration is now closed. For any questions, please contact season@newmuseum.org.
The annual Convening for Contemporary Art, Education, and Social Justice is organized by Tiffany Jones, Educator in Residence, and Emily Mello, Associate Director of Education.
Schedule
7 PM
A conversation with New Museum artists-in-residence Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith. The artists will discuss the culmination of their many layered four-year collaborative work, Mirror/Echo/Tilt, a researched performance-based pedagogy, video installation, and living curriculum. This program is open to the public with complimentary admission for Convening participants.
Friday, July 26
9:30 AM
Check-in and light breakfast
10 AM
Welcome from the organizers
10:10 AM
Self and Community Care for Educators with Aki Baker and Sunder Ashni
11:15 AM
Keynote presentation by Mariame Kaba
12:30 PM
Lunch provided
1:30 PM
Design Futuring Workshop with Melanie Crean and Ayodamola Okunseinde
3:30-4:00 PM
Reflection/wrap-up
Saturday, July 27
9:30 AM
Check-in and light breakfast
10 AM
Welcome from the organizers
10:10 AM
Self and Community Care for Educators, Aki Baker and Sunder Ashni
11:15 AM
Keynote presentation by Groundswell’s Director of Programming, Eric Miles; Lead Artists Crystal Bruno and DonChristian Jones; and youth artists
12:30 PM
Lunch provided
1:30 PM
Convening participant presentations
3PM
Wrap-up
3:30–5:30 PM
Off-site reception tba
Sponsors
New Museum school and teen programs are made possible, in part, by Con Edison, Bloomingdale’s, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund; and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.
Additional endowment support is provided by the JPMorgan Chase Professional Development Workshop Program for Teachers.
