Conversation: Art as Protest, Protest as Art

This event is limited capacity. Please arrive early. Lineup is subject to change. RSVP is on our Eventbrite link: http://blackartstorytalk.eventbrite.com/

Conversation: Art as Protest, Protest as Art
Friday, Feb 12, 7-9pm
Leisure Life, 559 Myrtle Ave
Moderated by: Erica Cardwell
Panelists: Janisha R. Gabriel, Jamal T. Lewis and Isissa Komada-John

Come discuss the collective power of radical artistic communities. The panel will share the “entry points” in thier intersectional narratives, intended or otherwise. As a collective, we will define “radical” as black practitioners and art makers, in acknowledgement of a political framework as an alternative perspective and not in response.

About the Moderator:
Erica Cardwell is an essayist, activist, culture critic, and educator. She teaches at the Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY and is a 2015 LAMBDA Fellow in Nonfiction. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The Feminist Wire, Bitch Media, Hyperallergic, The London Progressive Journal, Ikons Magazine and forth coming for Sinister Wisdom.

About the Panelists:
Jamal T. Lewis is a cultural worker and emerging multidisciplinary performance artist living in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, New York, hailing from Atlanta, Georgia. He/She received a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Morehouse College, and is currently at The School of Media Studies at The New School. Jamal’s work interrogates and explores identity formation, ugliness, desire(ability), race, class, gender, and sexuality through a Black, queer, feminist, abolitionist lens. www.jamaltlewis.com / @fatfemme

Janisha R. Gabriel is a painter, graphic designer, and web designer. She has been involved in numerous social justice initiatives centering on black liberation, gender justice, and LGBTQ equality. Janisha is the founder of the Speak My Name Project, a board member of The BLK Projek, and the Technology & Design organizer for the #BlackLivesMatterorganization.@janishargabriel

Isissa Komada-John is a multidisciplinary curator and designer. She was recently appointed Exhibitions Manager at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and she previously served as the Exhibitions Director of MoCADA, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, in Brooklyn. Isissa has worked with over 100 artists to develop socially-engaged projects, and she has curated and organized over 20 exhibitions, reviewed in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, The Huffington Post, ARTINFO, Daily Serving, and others. Isissa holds a degree in Africana Studies from Brown University, and has studied Interior Design at Parsons the New School for Design.

Presented by the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership in collaboration with Leisure Life NYC, CONVERSATION: ART AS PROTEST, PROTEST AS ART is part of Black Artstory Month 2016 titled, SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. The series of FREE performances, talks, film screenings, and public art experiences celebrate the enduring influences and contributions that African Americans have made and are making within the visual and performing arts worlds. Coinciding with Black History Month, SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED will transform Myrtle Avenue into a cultural destination with window murals, art exhibits and events featuring the work of 50 artists. myrtleavenue.org/blackartstory