Pressing Public Issues Presentations and Exhibition Launch
Thu, May 30, 2019
12:00 PM–2:00 PM
The James Gallery
Please join faculty and students from across CUNY community colleges, and teaching artists for presentations and an exhibition launch of Pressing Public Issuesto learn about their experiences designing and facilitating creative modes of research, expression, knowledge-production and public scholarship to spark challenging and productive conversations within their campuses, their local communities, the broader CUNY community, and across New York City.
Students, faculty and teaching artists from three of the six Pressing Public Issues courses will share their creative work, and speak about their semester-long process of exploring particular issues of importance to them through a variety of creative mediums:
In ‘Linguistic Landscapes: Unpacking Language Hierarchies’ at La Guardia Community College, students explored and examined the linguistic landscape of their school as well as Jackson Heights, how language(s) shape these public spheres, and reflected on their experiences of this linguistic exploration through digital storytelling projects. At the launch students will be presenting their final projects. This project was led by CUNY faculty instructor Inés Vañó García and artist Ryan Seslow.
In ‘Asian American History: “What a test never taught me…”’ at Borough of Manhattan Community College, students unpacked myths of meritocracy, culture, and success as it relates to Asian Americans and education in the U.S. Students examined their individual and community educational histories to express different “push-out” and “pull-in” factors, or, structural issues that prevent and encourage us to stay on our educational paths. The art installation of students’ collages and scantrons, is a visual culmination of their semester-long collaborative work. This project was led by CUNY faculty instructor Soniya Munshi and artist Melissa Liu.
In ‘Black Land Ownership’ at Bronx Community College, students explored how a systematic lack of access to land and property ownership for African Americans over 400 years of U.S. History has led to massive wealth inequality today. In collaboration with artist Walis Johnson, the class culminated in the installation of the public art participatory project Red Line Labyrinth on BCC’s historic Stanford White campus. This project was led by CUNY faculty instructor Prithi Kanakamedala and artist Walis Johnson.
Spearheaded by a partnership between the James Gallery, the Teaching and Learning and Center, and the CUNY Humanities Alliance, Pressing Public Issues has brought together a cohort of six teaching artists and six faculty teaching courses in various disciplines at CUNY community colleges in Spring 2019.
The Pressing Public Issues exhibition of students’ work from all six CUNY community college courses will be on public display at the James Gallery from May 30th – June 15th, 2019. Gallery hours: Wed 2-4pm, Thu 2-7pm, Fri 2-4pm.
Co-sponsored by the James Gallery, the Teaching and Learning and Center, and the CUNY Humanities Alliance.
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