Art and Culture discussions locally and internationally, this program runs the gamut.....

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis

This month on Live Culture Martha is pleased to talk with Catherine E. McKinley, author of four critically acclaimed books, about her most recent project The African Lookbook: A Visual History of 100 Years of African Women published by Bloomsbury in 2021. This lavishly illustrated book is an exploration of Africa's photographic history, fashion, trade history, and African women's selfhood. The book features works from The McKinley Collection, a personal archive representing African photography from 1870 to the present. This unique project features an introduction by Edwidge Danticat, a foreword by Jacqueline Woodson and original collages, sourced with images from the collection, by Frida Orupabo.

The African Lookbook creates a powerful locus where where history and personal narrative blend to construct a sweeping,  unprecedented visual history of African women.  Join us for a conversation about collecting,  identities, shifting technologies, fashion and the fascinating global history of textiles, trade, and migration.
 
A Fulbright scholar, McKinley has also published The Book of Sarahs, a memoir, which chronicles growing up in the 1970s and 80s as one of the less than 15,000 Black and "Bi-racial" children adopted into white homes, and McKinley's search for self in the Jewish, Choctaw, and Black family spread from Ghana to Cape Verde, Las Vegas to Boston. She is also the author of Indigo: In Search of the Color that Seduced the World, which recounts a journey along ancient trade routes in eleven West African countries in search of "blue gold" with its connections to spirituality, art, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the deepest human desires.  Her other writings include explorations of Black lesbian identity, African textiles and material culture, the birth in 1957 of African's first industrial doll alongside Independence, the fashions of Namibian Herero women and the legacy of the first genocide of the 20th century. McKinley has taught creative nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University.  She lives in New York City.

More about Catherine E. McKinley can be found here: https://catherinemckinley.net/
More about the African Lookbook can be found here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/the-african-lookbook-9781620403532/
More about The McKinley Collection can be found here: https://themckinleycollection.com/

This episode also includes music clips by Rokia Traoré & Fats Waller.

Now in it's 5th Year, Live Culture is a monthly radio program
about art, ideas and visual culture,
hosted by artist Martha Willette Lewis
& airing on WPKN radio, Bridgeport Ct.

Live Culture Episode 67: The African Lookbook- a talk with Catherine E. McKinley

This month on Live Culture Martha is in discussion with Beatrice Galilee and Cyra Levenson about the residency of The World Around throughout 2021 at the Guggenheim Museum  in New York. Founded by Diego Marroquin and Beatrice Galilee, The World Around is an itinerant nonprofit organization dedicated to telling the most impactful and important stories of architectural culture today, making the invisible forces that shape our lives visible. Through a robust series of international events and online broadcasts, the platform seeks to connect and create a diverse global network of thinkers and makers today.
The World Around held its Second Annual Summit on Saturday January 30, 2021, Celebrating the Now, Near, and Next for Architecture and Design. Marking the launch of a year-long residency at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, The World Around Summit 2021 live-streamed new and under construction work from architects, designers and artists from 14 global cities and institutions including Johannesburg, Dubai, London, Mexico City, Berlin, Nairobi, Melbourne, Monterrey, Shanghai, Stockholm and Tokyo.  But this massive celebration was just the beginning of the residency. As Cyra has stated:
“As we build programming for this groundbreaking year-long residency, the Guggenheim welcomes this collaboration with The World Around as an opportunity to explore the intersection of architecture, civic space, and public engagement. This is a time to rethink the role of cultural institutions like ours, including both the physical and social space we create, with the lens of equity and diversity. We value the alliance with thought leaders, placemakers, and visionaries in this endeavor.”
Beatrice Galilee is an organizer and writer of things, spaces, and ideas. She is
founder and executive director of The World Around and former associate curator
of architecture and design at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has curated
architecture biennales, trienniales, and exhibitions in Beijing; Shenzhen, China; Gwangju,
South Korea; Lisbon; Milan; and London; and her writing has been published all over
the world. Her first book, Radical Architecture of the Future, is published by Phaidon.
Cyra Levenson is Deputy Director and Gail Engleberg Director of Education and Public
Engagement at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Her role includes partnering
across the foundation”s international network to develop modern and contemporary
art and architecture programming. She came to the Guggenheim Museum from the
Cleveland Museum of Art, where she was deputy director and head of public and
academic engagement.
Learn more at www.theworldaround.com and follow on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thewrldaround/?hl=en
 Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Community/The-world-around-1724084411187549/
 and Twitter.  https://twitter.com/thewrldaround?lang=en
@thewrldaround | #theworldaround

More about the Guggenheim museum: https://www.guggenheim.org/

the world around

Live Culture 68:  The World Around-  Beatrice Galilee and Cyra Levenson

August's Live Culture- a discussion with artist and author Lynne Stein about her new book "Shedding the Shackles" out now via Bloomsbury. we discuss women's craft projects from around the world and what kind of freedom is offered by making things...

Live Culture 69:  Feminist Craft. Shedding the Shackles author Lynn Stein

This month on Live Culture, Martha is in discussion with two members of VozTerra, an experimental sound project based in Bogotá, Colombia, which addresses the climate crisis, social justice issues, and the effects of Covid lockdown through innovative collaborative audio recordings mixing ambient noises and music. Much of it incorporates sounds of nature from the threatened and environmentally rich Van der Hammen Reserve, while the Sounds From Your Window project offers a global interactive aural glimpse of life during the lockdown.

VozTerra is an audio project created with the purpose of raising awareness about the care of our natural ecosystems, and to open up new experiences for listening, in dialogue with global communities. VozTerra is a proud recipient of the Latinoamerica Verde Awards and features an excellent website full of audio meditations, videos, sounds, music and ways to participate and get involved. You may listen to more here: https://www.vozterra.com/

The music albums Ventanas Volume 1, Ventanas, Volume 2, and Alteraciones, and Reserva, all from 2021, are now available on most major sound platforms for listening, with sale proceeds going to the artists who donated their talents to this project as well as an ecological tree planting initiative, and a fund to support older musicians living on the margins. There is also a wonderful video, an official selection from the AXD Short Film Festival about the Sounds from Your Windows project is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uguCxdUD_WE

VozTerra was created in November, 2019 by Lany Arévalo, Héctor Buitrago, Rafael Puyana, Diana Restrepo, and Daniel Roa, who, in collaboration with The Museum for the United Nations - UN Live, developed the multimedia web platform for this innovative and timely project. Don’t miss this conversation with two of the VozTerra Collective: Rafael Puyana and Diana Restrepo as we meet on Zoom from Sweden, Hong Kong, and Bogotá to discuss art, social justice, and the climate crisis during the time of Covid. This is environmental activism at its most creative, compelling, and inclusive. More about the The Museum for the United Nations - UN Live here: https://museumfortheun.org/about/

Diana Maria Restrepo is a distinguished sound artist and performer. She graduated in percussion from the Paris Conservatoire and did her Masters's studies at the Sound Studies Program of the University of Arts, Berlin. Her artistic concerns point towards personal and collective memory as plastic matter and its relation to sound. She has worked in soundscape, radio, audio design, and installation. She has extensive experience managing and curating artistic and cultural projects. More about Diana can be found at www.dianarestrepo.co

Rafael Puyana is a media artist, designer, interactive creative director, educator, and live coder. He has been exploring the intersections between art, design and technology in the digital landscape for around 15 years, for projects and companies in Colombia, Canada, United States, and Mexico. He currently supports companies and special projects with the crystallization of their ideas into prototypes and digital tangible products: applications, mobile, web, installations, and AR/VR. More about Rafael can be found at: www.rafaelpuyana.com

Now in it's 5th Year, Live Culture is a monthly radio program about art, ideas and visual culture. For 2021 Martha has largely been focusing on art addressing the Climate Crisis and issues of Social Justice during the time of Covid.

live culture

Live Culture 70: Environmental activism and COVID:  Catching up with VozTerra Collective

This Month on Live Culture!
My Guests are Jay Kemp and Victoria McCraven from NXTHVN to talk about Their Black History's NXT Future: an ode to black voices event celebrating poetry and Black History Month
followed by a discussion with
Kim Weston, Visual artist, photographer and founder of WABI gallery about to open soon in New Haven!
https://www.eventbrite.com/.../black-historys-nxt-future...
https://wabi.gallery/

Live Culture 71: BHM Poetry at NXTHVN and a discussion with Kim Weston &  Wabi gallery

This month's Live Culture features an interview which originally aired March 26, 2022, with artist Richard Pasquarelli about his current work in the exhibit The Matter At Hand, up now at the Jennifer Terzian Gallery in Litchfield CT, https://jenniferterziangallery.com/richard-pasquarelli/
and in the Second half
I am in conversation with music promoter Fernando Pinto about his spring/summer line up of live music at Cafe 9 in New Haven, starting with Scottish post-punk band APB on March 30th!
Find out more and get tickets here: https://www.fernandopintopresents.com

don't miss out on the fun- sign up for the monthly newsletter here: https://marthalewis.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1c3aeb8c5e84e311c51042004&id=ae2288ddd1
and join the Live Culture Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/livecultureradio/

Live Culture Episode 72: Visual Artist Richard Pasquarelli & Music Promoter Fernando Pinto

This month on Live Culture the tables get turned as Yale Quantum Institute Manager Florian Carle interviews Martha Willette Lewis about her work in the exhibit The Quantum Revolution: Made In New Haven, up now at the New Haven Museum. The show features Martha's original notebook drawings and artifacts from the quantum labs at Yale University, where Martha was artist-in-residence.To find out more about The Quantum Revolution visit here https://www.newhavenmuseum.org/39692-2/

In the second half, things shift back to normal and disentangle, as Martha interviews visual artist and writer Brahna Yassky about her new memoir Slow Dancing With Fire: A Memoir of Resilience, a story of rebuilding a new life after the previous one is suddenly and painfully destroyed. Brahna started writing this memoir thirty years after literally catching on fire, an event which altered the course of her destiny. As an emerging young painter in New York City, she lived her dream, supporting herself painting full time. At night, she attended openings, cultural events and clubs.

In 1982, a flame burned 55% of her body, including her painting arm. She spent months in the burn unit, and the next year in physical and occupational therapy. As Brahna healed, her priorities shifted from the aspiration of art-world fame to more collaborative creative interactions.  She worked as an art therapist in a hospital program for abused children, in nursing homes and in schools. She did large-scale public projects for The New York City Department of Health and joined The Guerrilla Girls, a women’s artist-activist collective, fighting injustices in the art world. She has turned her life experiences into a film and now this book.

Slow Dancing With Fire: A Memoir of Resilience is available now through Shanti Press.

About the Author:
Brahna Yassky won honorable mention for the 2018 Doheny Prize from the Center for Fiction and finalist for the 2019 Brooklyn Nonfiction Prize. Her essays have been published in The Plentitudes Journal, The American Writers Review 2020 (San Fedele Press), Wired, Salon, The Independent, among others. Trained as a visual artist at California College of the Arts and San Francisco State University her work has been widely exhibited, including The Bali Purnati Center, MOMA, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Hudson River Museum and The Painting Center, NYC.
More about Brahna can be found here https://www.brahnayassky.com/

Live Culture Episode 73: Super Cold +   Scorching Hot- Florain Carle, Martha Lewis and Brahna Yassky

This month on Live Culture, Martha is delighted to be in conversation with artist Suzanne Anker about her exhibit After Eden, up now at The Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven CT. Suzanne is a visual artist and theorist working at the intersection of art and the biological sciences. Her practice investigates the ways in which nature is being altered in the 21st century. Concerned with genetics, climate change, species extinction and toxic degradation, she calls attention to the beauty of life and the “necessity for enlightened thinking about nature’s ‘tangled bank’.”

Anker is a pioneer in Bio Art, focusing on the alteration of nature, in both the natural world and the scientific lab. This exhibition marks the debut of After Eden, Anker’s most recent body of work, comprising a series of photographs and collages constructed over the last two years. Anker frequently works with botanical specimens, medical museum artifacts, laboratory apparatus, microscopic images and geological specimens. She works across mediums ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography to plants grown by LED lights. All of the exhibition images represent botanical specimens she has grown – from flowers to ferns to trees. Employing traditional "cut and paste" techniques of twentieth-century collage, she creates imaginary specimens that one day may be possible to exist. Ceramic sculptures made from deep sea sponges appear as asteroids making the connection between how little we know about the oceans and outer space. Other featured works refer to genetics, the origin of life and synthetic biology.
The show was organized by Gallery Director Debbie Hesse and included a public talk as a part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven.

see more here: https://elycenter.org/
& here: http://suzanneanker.com/
Suzanne's radio project the BioBlurbs on Clocktower radio are available here: https://clocktower.org/series/the-bio-blurb-show

Suzanne Anker: After Eden
June 5 – July 17, 2022
The Ely Center of Contemporary Art
51 Trumbull Street New Haven, CT 06510

Live Culture Episode 74: After Eden a talk with artist Suzanne Anker

First, a conversation with Adriane Jefferson, New Haven's Cultural Affairs Director and Slay Washington of The Breed Entertainment about The Black Wall Street Festival minutes before it starts,
and then Martha talks with Artspace New Haven's Visual Culture Director Gabriel Sacco and Director Lisa Dent about this year's Open Source Festival (formerly CWOS) !

Live Culture 75: Black Wall street and The Open Source Festival-

This month Live Culture offers a discussion with members of the exhibition Undue Burden: Privacy, Protection and Politics, a project and sale to benefit Planned Parenthood of Southern New England including artist and exhibit organizer Linda Lindroth, and exhibiting artist Scott Schuldt, along with Planned Parenthood of Southern New England President & CEO, Amanda Skinner to discuss what the local impact of the overturning of Roe Vs Wade is having on the organization and how artists and others can get involved.

Undue Burden: Privacy, Protection and Politics
takes place October 4 – 30, 2022 The Da Silva Gallery, 899 Whalley Avenue, New Haven, CT.

There will be Two public reception events featuring the artists will be held on Sunday October 16 from 3-5 pm and Saturday, October 29 from 3-5pm, as a part of Artspace New Haven's Open Source Festival.

Posters have played a role in America’s political landscape since 1824 when John Quincy Adams used one to announce his presidency. Each of the 20 artists in Undue Burden: Privacy, Protection and Politics have used their considerable talents to weigh in on the Dobbs Decision which essentially has overturned the 50 year precedent of Roe v Wade. This exhibition features original poster-sized works on paper, which are each for sale for $250 with all of the proceeds going to Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.

The exhibition is curated by Linda Lindroth and Sally Hill.

Featuring the work of :
A. Kimberlin Blackburn
Patrick Carroll
Colleen Coleman
George Corsillo
Jeanne Criscola
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Alex Girard
Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez
Elena Grossman
Luke Hanscom
Sally Hill
Beth Klingher
Shirley Parker Levine MD
Martha Willette Lewis
Diane & Tim Nighswander
Scott Schuldt
Kevin Van Aelst
Brenda Zlamany

Scott Schuldt is a self-taught multimedia artist. His work has been collected by the Museum of Art and Design and several public collections. His focus for the last 3 years has been sewing large bead embroidery pieces. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Linda Lindroth is an artist and educator. Her work is in the collections of a dozen museums including MoMA and The Met. She received her MFA in Art from the MGSA at Rutgers.

Amanda N. Skinner, is President & Chief Executive Officer of Planned Parenthood of Southern new England. Skinner, a nurse midwife, is a graduate of Rice University with a BA in philosophy and managerial studies. She holds an MSN from the Yale School of Nursing and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. Skinner spent ten years in clinical practice as a nurse midwife, serving for four years as the Chair of the Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Nurse Midwives. During her tenure, she led a major legislative effort that ensured increased access to care for women in Connecticut, expanded the scope of practice for nurse midwives, and provided liability protection for collaborating physicians.

Live Culture 76: Undue Burden

This month it's two conversations. one with Artist Rita Valley about her show with fellow artist Lydia Viscardi at Camp Gallery,  and secondly, arts organizer Elinor Slomba of ArtsWest Ct, which is amplifying and supporting the arts communities in West Haven through events, increased information and coverage and creating venues.

Live Culture episode 77:

Up Now in the archives! 
https://archives.wpkn.org/bookmarks/listen/377818
This month's episode features guest co-host and artist Maxim Schmidt as we celebrate Women's History Month with a discussion with artists George Corsillo, Clymenza Hawkins and Amy Wachtel about their involvement with the art exhibit Sound & Vision II: For the Record...  a visual and musical celebration of feminism involving over 40 artists  in a gallery exhibit featuring imaginary record covers, real covers form  private collections and the wpkn archive and musical memorabilia from  women musicians at many stages of their careers.
The show is up until May 6th at the Institute Library 847 Chapel St. new Haven.
More about the show can be found at: Institutelibrary.org
Live Culture is a monthly conversation about Visual Art- a full set of podcasts is available here on the WPKN Soundcloud page
https://soundcloud.com/wpkn895/sets/live-culture-with-martha
The full list of 
Exhibition Participants:
Amanda Bouquet
Amelia Maurer
Amy Wachtel
Angelica Sistrunk
Ann Kennedy
Carol Snyder
Christine Ohlman
Claudia Doring Baez
Corinthia Saez
Dika Kuljis
Dylan Strazar
Emily Herberich
Eva Geertz
Eve Hars
George Corsillo
Jahmal Henderson
Jeff Sokolowski
Joanne Connon
Jody Clouse
John Keefer
Julia Cumming
Julie Bowers Murphy
Kathleen DeMeo
Linda Lindroth
Martha Willette Lewis
Matt Feiner
Michelle Beaulieu-Morgan
Mohan Maharaj, Sr
Patrick Carroll, Linda Lindroth,
Sally Hill & Tim Nighswander
Regan Avery
Sadie Grey Murphy
Sue Czark
T.M. Stewart
Tammy Faye Starlite
Tina Sarno
V.V. Aldebaran McEvoy
The Collection of Alec Cumming
The Collection of Eva Geertz
The Collection of Del La Pietro
The Collection of Steve DiCostanzo
The Collection of WPKN
Curated by
Martha Willette Lewis
With Special Thanks to:
Café 9, Alec Cumming, Steve DiConstanzo, Eva Geertz, Del La Pietro, Mohan Maharaj Sr, Ann Marlowe, Michelle Beaulieu-Morgan, Rick Omante/Shaki Presents, Valerie Richardson, Scott Schuldt, WPKN radio, and the board and volunteers of The Institute Library

Live Culture Episode 79 : women's History Month, For the Record...

Giving Trees: On being an artist. How creatives are asked consistently to work for free, donate art, and otherwise give away ones talents....and how to survive and thrive when the culture at large doesn't perceive creative capitol as labor.

Live Culture 80:Maxim Schmidt, Ruby Gonzales Hernandez and  Susan Clinard

This month we offer a discussion with members of the exhibition No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor opening February 17 at Real Artways in Hartford. Listen in on a lively conversation with artists Carlos Estevez, Lesley Dill, Micki Watanabe Spiller and curator Alva Greenberg about this expansive group exhibit focusing on the ideas around garments and embodiment.
  About the exhibit:   "Clothing conveys impressions of social background, economic status and ethnicity. Like physical features, it is one of the most common means used to project ourselves and understand others. This inclination to categorize others is also a way of controlling our responses to them. How often do we subconsciously imbue clothing with a significance which is misleading?   The altered and uninhabited clothing in No Bodies disrupts these autonomic responses by playing with perceptions of materiality, cultural identity, relationships, political beliefs and portraiture itself. Being free of physicality, the works in No Bodies force us to confront assumptions, as well as the ever-growing societal compartmentalization of people and behavior and the #socialmedia which increasingly rules our thinking. What does it mean when we deconstruct a garment by unraveling it or burning it or turning it into another material? What does clothing symbolize when there never was or will be a body inside?"   Participating Artists:   Reginald Dwayne Betts, John Boone, Marsha Borden, Rachel Breen, Chris Burden, Patrick Carroll, Susan Clinard, Hannah Conradt, E.V. Day, Lesley Dill, Anindita Dutta, Nina Dwin, Carlos Estévez, Kathryn Frund, Jonathan Herrera Soto, Jesse Krimes, Whitfield Lovell, Adriana Marmorek, Carol Paik, Sidney Russell, Karen Shaw, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Micki Watanabe Spiller, Cindy Tower, Cleo Wilkinson, Cybèle Young.   About the Curator:   Alva Greenberg is a curator and artist based in Connecticut.  From 1997-2009, she ran ALVA Gallery, in New London, CT dedicated to promoting mid-career artists working in all disciplines. In 2006, she was a recipient of the Eugene O’Neill Center’s “25 of Connecticut’s most Uncommon Women” award and in 2018 she received the State of Connecticut Governor’s Patron of the Arts award.   https://carlosestevez.net/index.html https://www.lesleydill.net/ https://mickispiller.com/

live culture  garment

a talk with the curator and artists from "no bodies: clothing as disruptor"

A talk with Curator nico w okoro about her new project the Orchid Gallery up now  at the ConnCorp building.  more at https://www.nicowheadon.com/ and https://conncorp.org/  

Maxim Schmidt and Martha Willette Lewis host a monthly discussion about Art and Culture. originally aired  on wpkn 89,5 fm

Live Culture- Max and Martha talk with nico w okoro about Orchid Gallery

In the first half a conversation with artist and scientist Nicholas Milkovich who is  giving a talk on his work at the Yale Franke Program and in the second half a conversation with Andres Versoza about his collection of baskets currently the subject of an exhibition at the Unionville Museum!

Live Culture: conversations with Nicholas Milkovich and Andres Versoza

July, 25, 2020 
My guests this month on Live Culture will be Film Director Josephine Decker and Film Editor David Barker to discuss their new film Shirley, which won the 2020 Sundance Film Festival
Special Jury Prize for Auteur Filmmaking.
 
In the Film, renowned horror writer Shirley Jackson is on the precipice of writing her masterpiece when the arrival of newlyweds upends her meticulous routine and heightens tensions in her already tempestuous relationship with her philandering husband. The middle-aged couple, prone to ruthless barbs and copious afternoon cocktails, begins to toy mercilessly with the naïve young couple at their door.

Shirley, which Opened Digitally on June 5th, Stars Elizabeth Moss in the title role, and was written by Sarah Gubbins, based on the book of the same name, written by Susan Scarf Merrell. 

Josephine Decker has said about Shirley Jackson: "I remember reading some critic or biographer noting that Shirley wasn’t a political writer. But I believe that Shirley grounded the political in the personal and that this is why her work continues to resonate today. Her stories are so deeply human that they are also timeless. She battled racism, classism and sexism through the unusual, the psychological, the manipulative rhythms of the subconscious.”
 
Join Josephine, David and I for a conversation about the mechanics behind making the film, with its distinctive coloring, camera style, and wonderfully detailed sets and costumes. As the film came out during the pandemic we discuss the logistics of that, and how Jackson herself is memorialized in this deeply creative blending of her life and her fiction, creating a new reality that very much speaks to the now. A feast for the eyes and ears, the film also  has a remarkable soundtrack including original music by Tamar-kali and tracks by Huddie Ledbetter, The Bell Sisters and Clarence Ashley. 

watch the trailer here 
for more about the film see here

Shirley 
 
DIRECTED BY
Josephine Decker 
WRITTEN BY
by Sarah Gubbins
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 
by Tamar-kali 

STARRING
Elisabeth Moss
Odessa Young
Michael Stuhlbarg
Logan Lerman
 
Distributed by NEON

lc july shirley podcast

Live Culture 63: The Making of the film "Shirley"- josephine Decker and David Barker

This month on Live Culture I am in conversation with Curator/Activist La Tanya S. Autry, and Artist/Activist Amanda D. King. La Tanya is Gund Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, where the exhibit she curated -Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom -is now on view. Amanda is an Artist, Activist, Founder and Creative Director of the groundbreaking art and advocacy initiative Shooting Without Bullets. We discuss a recent upheaval at moCA, where an exhibition of drawings by noted artist Shaun Leonardo, depicting police violence, was cancelled after concern over the content was voiced. This resulted in an outcry from the artist, subsequent apologies to him from the museum and the director stepping down. Both Amanda and La Tanya were involved in raising objections to showing the work in the museum, along with Miss Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, who was the subject of one of the drawings. Much has been written about the artist being censored, but there is more to it. This is a complex story which the two help untangle as we discuss institutionalized racism, community, and the impact of images. At the center of it all is the heartbreaking issue: what rights do family members of victims of violence have over the images of their loved ones? How do we sensitively navigate the line between public and private? And more broadly, what can we do about institutionalized racism in museums and the art world? 
Amanda D. King is a Cleveland-based artist, activist, and educator. Her civically engaged practice utilizes arts education, cultural production, and cultural organizing to spread progressive ideas and messages of social justice. Amanda is the Founder and Creative Director of Shooting Without Bullets, a for-impact organization utilizing cultural production, artist education and development, activism and advocacy to model an alternative arts ecosystem that accelerates movement Black and Brown youth and their communities need to thrive. Amanda holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History from Bryn Mawr College and a Juris Doctor Degree from Case Western Reserve University where she received the Martin Luther King Jr., Diane Ethics, and Dean’s Community Service Awards. More about Shooting Without Bullets here: http://www.shootingwithoutbullets.org/
As a cultural organizer in the visual arts, La Tanya S. Autry centers collective care in her decolonial, abolitionist curatorial praxis. In addition to co-creating The Art of Black Dissent, an interactive program that both promotes public discussion about the Black liberation struggle and engenders fighting antiblackness through the collective imagining of public art interventions, she co-produced #museumsarenotneutral, an initiative that exposes the fallacies of the neutrality claim and calls for an equity-based transformation of museums and the Social Justice and Museums Resource List, a crowd-sourced bibliography. La Tanya has curated exhibitions and organized programs at moCA Cleveland, Yale University Art Gallery, Artspace New Haven, and other institutions. Through her graduate studies at the University of Delaware, where she is completing her Ph.D. In Art History, La Tanya has developed expertise in the art of the United States, photography, and museums. Her dissertation The Crossroads of Commemoration: Lynching Landscapes in America, which analyzes how individuals and communities memorialize lynching violence in the built environment, concentrates on the interplay of race, representation, memory, and public space. More about the Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom exhibition:  https://www.mocacleveland.org/exhibitions/temporary-spaces-joy-and-freedom  
More about The Art of Black Dissent: https://theartofblackdissent.wordpress.com/who-are-we/
More about Museums Are Not Neutral:https://artstuffmatters.wordpress.com/
More about The Social Justice & Museums Resource List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PyqPVslEPiq0Twnn4YYVXopk3q426J95nISRxvkQI_Q/edit

Live Culture 64: How to Make a Scaffolding of Care- La Tanya S. Autry, and Amanda D. King.

This Saturday on Live Culture features a conversation with Andres Verzosa, Executive Director of The Stanley-Whitman House in Farmington,CT. The Stanley-Whitman House is a historic house museum built ca 1720, and is one of the oldest houses in Farmington. In December 2020 the structure celebrated it’s 300th anniversary.  A well-preserved saltbox with post-medieval construction features, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. The house is now a living history center and museum. Events, classes, and exhibits encourage visitors of all ages to immerse themselves in history by engaging in Colonial life and the ideas that formed the foundation of that culture.  The House offers docent-led and self-guided tours, visitors to The Stanley-Whitman House can participate in adult and children's programs, cooking demonstrations, walking tours, and other special events. Visitors may also view modern art installations, conduct genealogical or local history research in the Library, walk around the grounds, and enjoy the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century reproduction gardens.  The need for social-distancing has made planning events and other programming very difficult for small arts organizations. We discuss the novel and innovative ways the members of this museum have found to keep the public engaged and the house vibrant.  

  Now in it's 5th Year, Live Culture is a monthly radio program about art, ideas and visual culture, hosted by artist Martha Willette Lewis and airing on WPKN radio, Bridgeport Ct.

Live Culture Episode 65 Socially Distant Past-Andres Verzosa of The Stanley-Whitman House

This month's Live Culture offers a conversation with artist Felandus Thames and curator David Borawski about the exhibit The Things That Haunt Me Still  up now at Real Art Ways in Hartford. The show, which runs until May 30, 2021, features Thames' assemblages which utilize found objects and non-traditional materials like hair beads and barrettes, to explore gender and race. Often asking more questions than offering answers, Thames’ playful use of materials and text utilizes humor as an entry point to exploring social and cultural issues.

Felandus Thames is a conceptual artist living and practicing in the greater New York area. Born in Mississippi, Thames attended the graduate program in Painting and Printmaking at Yale University where he received his MFA in 2010. He has been included in exhibitions at the Kravets Wehby Gallery, Tilton Gallery, Heather James Gallery, Charles H. Wright Museum, African American Museum of Philadelphia, Mississippi Museum of Art, Yale University, Wesleyan University, Columbia University, Art Hamptons, Art LA, The Texas Contemporary, and Miami Basel.

David Borawski is an artist and curator whose own work involves text and found object assemblages. His affinity with Thames' work has resulted in a thoughtfully presented exhibition in one of Connecticut's most innovative and dynamic  exhibition venues. 

More about the show and RealArtWays can be found here: https://www.realartways.org/
more about Felandus Thames and his work can be found here: https://www.felandus.com/

Now in it's 5th Year, Live Culture is a monthly radio program about art, ideas and visual culture, hosted by artist Martha Willette Lewis and airing on WPKN radio, Bridgeport Ct.

Image credits:
Logo :Detail of "Small and Large Thoughts" by Joan Fitzsimmons, Courtesy of the artist

 
 
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Live Culture Episode 66: The Things That Haunt Me Still-  Felandus Thames and David Borawski

WPKN is a nonprofit, freeform, community radio station (arts organization) that is more than 50 years old.  The vision of WPKN is to build community, a loyal and growing audience, and an engaged and educated citizenry by providing the highest quality of free-form programming that broadcasts entertainment, music, news, thoughts, sounds, ideas and event listings that support free speech, diversity, and the interests of the local and global communities WPKN serves.  Our radio frequency of 89.5-FM (Bridgeport)includes a coverage map of 1.5 million people in Farfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties in Connecticut and Suffolk county (The North Fork and Hamptons) in New York.  WPKN also maintains an on-demand streaming and archive of WPKN programming as well as our WPKN PODCASTS that focus on 22+ 'talk-oriented' community, cultural and news programs. We also feature an expanding list of interviews with music personalities and artists from all over the world.

Live Culture with Martha Willette Lewis

WPKN Community Radio