How do we understand and interpret the significance of socially and politically engaged artwork in a culture that values profit over process, commodity over collaboration? How can artists, arts organizations, and philanthropy mutually reinforce and support projects that pursue meaningful change through the unstable, intangible, and often invisible channels of organizing, building relationships, and community care?
On Wednesday, September 27th at 7pm CST panelists Annika Johnson, Diana Martinez, and Alajia McKizia will join moderator Jared Packard for Amplify’s next in-person Alternate Currents panel discussion, Irony, Wonder, Allusion: Evaluating Social Practice at the Ashton in Millwork Commons to consider how critical and evaluative frameworks might change to more fully embrace the uncertainties, indecipherable rewards, and generative failures inherent in socially and politically engaged work.
Free and open to all. Please RSVP to join the conversation. Face masks are not required but always welcome. And don’t forget to visit the Alternate Currents blog to read up on the topic before the discussion.
www.amplifyarts.org/alternate-currents
Alternate Currents incubates artist-led responses to the systemic challenges we face by centering creative research, collaboration, and critical dialogue both on- and off-line. Together, the Alternate Currents Blog, Discussion Series, and Working Group hold space for critical discourse around national and international issues in the arts that have a profound impact at the local level.
Alternate Currents programming is presented with support from the Sherwood Foundation, the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
About the Panelists:
Annika Johnson is Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Joslyn Art Museum where she is developing installations, programming, and research initiatives in collaboration with Indigenous communities. Her research and curatorial projects examine nineteenth-century Native American art and exchange with Euro-Americans, as well as contemporary artistic and activist engagements with the histories and ongoing processes of colonization. Annika received her PhD in art history from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 and grew up in Minnesota, Dakota homelands called Mni Sóta Makoce.
Diana Martinez is the Programs Director for The Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE. The Union for Contemporary Art strengthens the cultural and social landscape of our community by using the arts as a vehicle to inspire positive social change. She is the former Artistic Director of Film Streams, a non-profit arthouse organization in Omaha, Nebraska. She was previously the organization’s Education Director. At Film Streams, in collaboration with founder Rachel Jacobson, she launched See Change, a gender parity initiative committed to programming 50% women-directed films by the end of 2021. Diana received her PhD from the University of Oregon. While there, she taught classes in film history, media aesthetics, and writing.
Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Alajia McKizia is a Black multi-disciplinary artist and curator working in community organizing, visual art, performance, herbalism, and creative placemaking. McKizia was a 2020 Inside/Outside Fellow at the Union For Contemporary Art where she debuted her movement performance film honoring Black women in Omaha titled “Resonate.” She co-founded Hiatus Healing Collective, an herbal mutual aid collective started in 2020. Alajia has featured interactive community art projects to explore themes of Black liberation throughout Omaha, as well as participated in group exhibits at The Bemis for Contemporary Art, Kaneko, TugBoat Gallery, Amplify Arts, and more. Alajia is the organizer of Juneteenth Joy Fest, an annual Black Arts & Culture Festival. She also is the curator of Sunday Soul; a five part series honoring women artists which was a 2022 Populus Fund project. Alajia was a 2022 Inspire Awards Young Leader Recipient and continues to cultivate community and creativity throughout Omaha
About the Moderator:
Jared Packard is an artist and curator based in Omaha, NE where he works as the Exhibitions Manager at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. Packard completed his BA at Clark University and his MFA at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has curated Opulence: Performative Wealth and the Failed American Dream, Bemis Center, Omaha; the NEA-funded unLOCK: Merging Art and Industry, Lockport, IL; the nationally traveling exhibition, ReTooled: Highlights from the Hechinger Collection; and (Re)Flex Space, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL. He has shown at Project Project, Omaha, NE; ADDS DONNA, Chicago, IL; Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL; Centre International d’Art Contemporain, Pont-Aven, France; Hillyer Art Space, Washington, D.C.