Art Archives

What Happens If You Get Caught With a Fake ID at a Bar?

Social Justice Changemaker Lecture: “Incarceration and its aftermath: How art can create pathways to reintegration and healing”

The Ford School is a proud sponsor the U-M School of Social Work’s Social Justice Changemaker Lecture, “Incarceration and its aftermath: How art can create pathways to reintegration and healing.”

A discussion between Reuben J. Miller and Nicole R. Fleetwood focuses on the impact of mass incarceration on individuals and society, what life is like after incarceration, and the healing power of art for people impacted by the carceral system.

This annual lecture focuses on important global social justice issues including race and nationality, immigration and refugees, income inequality, gender identity and sexual orientation, education, health, and mental and physical disabilities.

The Social Justice Changemaker Lecture aims to bring prominent social justice experts and advocates from multiple disciplines including social sciences, science, humanities, the arts and other professions to the University of Michigan Campus.

For more information, please visit the event page.

New Observations: Bringing Art and Activism to Challenging Times

Mia Feroleto, Jalil Muntaqim, and Chief Henry Red Cloud.

Join us for three speakers:

Mia Feroleto, publisher of New Observations (https://www.newobservations.org/) — an independent, non-profit contemporary arts and culture journal — shares information about its founding in 1985 by artist Lucio Pozzi, and the way she has used her own activism to shape the trajectory of the magazine.

Jalil Muntaqim, who joined the Black Panther Party at the age of 18, discusses his almost 50 years of incarceration as well as his activism both inside and outside of prison walls. As a co-founder of the Jericho Movement and founder of the Spirit of Mandela, Jalil works for freedom and equality, and seeks to influence people of all races around the world.

Chief Henry Red Cloud gives an overview of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation and the challenges Lakota and other Indigenous Peoples face today. He also discusses his extraordinary work bringing solar power and sustainable housing to the reservation.

This event is part of the fall Arts & Resistance theme semester sponsored by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; the U-M Museum of Art; and the U-M Arts Initiative to explore how the visual, performing, and literary arts play a central role in shaping cultural and political narratives. Sponsored by the U-M Arts Initiative, the U-M Library, and the U-M Department of History.

Paint OUT: Michigan Made Art & Resistance Community Event

Neon green hand print over pink dripping spray paint on black background.

Join us for an IMMERSIVE public art-making workshop to explore the power of arts and send goodwill to the thousands of people incarcerated in Michigan.

Free & open to the public. All ages & abilities welcome!
Food tickets & SWAG bags available to the first 200 guests.

Ingalls Mall North
881 N University Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Presented in collaboration with American Friends Service Committee & Nation Outside

Creative Arts and Food Justice

Students collaborating at the first Behind the Zines meeting

Interested in food sustainability or social justice initiatives? Want to engage in zine issuing, editorial meetings, planning of launch parties and more? Come join one of our biweekly meetings to get involved with The University of Michigan Sustainable Food Program. We have four different groups to join, all with different themes. Fill out the interest form and come to a meeting to get involved! Questions? Email us at umsfp.core@umich.edu

Interest Form

The Ways of Water: Art, Activism, and Ecologies Symposium

LaToya Ruby Frazier, Moses West Holding a “Free Water” Sign on North Saginaw Street Between East Marengo Avenue and East Pulaski Avenue, Flint, Michigan, 2019/2020.

Water is the lifeblood of civilizations, the center of cities, the foundation of creation stories and the connective tissue of culture. Water is a life force, without it humanity will cease to exist. Despite this fact, or perhaps because of it, water is highly politicized, used as a weapon, tool,
inspiration, and muse. Water is a vital life source that holds (and generates) power. It is nourishing, quenching, and refreshing but has also been commodified, polluted, and politicized. From the Standing Rock, Leech Lake and
Fond du Lac reservations, to the straits of Mackinac where oil pipelines threaten important waterways, to the polluted Mississippi River and drying Colorado River Basin, to water shutoffs in Detroit, PFAs in Ann Arbor, and the Flint Water crisis (to name just a few), ensuring access to clean water (and the sustainable ecologies it supports) is an ongoing struggle that requires
intersectional, intergenerational, and collective knowledge sharing, discussion and action to protect.
The symposium brings together a diverse group of practitioners, including artists, designers, activists, scholars, scientists, policy analysts, urban planners, and thinkers to discuss what may well be the most important
issue of our time: access to clean water and the fight for environmental justice. Held in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art and building on themes present in the UMMA exhibition Watershed and Stamps Gallery's LaToya Ruby Frazier: Flint is Family in Three Acts, The Ways of Water symposium continues to unravel the story of water, its critical role,
and the way it connects us all.

Flint Is Family In Three Acts details the destructive forces of industry, lax regulation on the environment and aging infrastructure in the United States highlighting the environmental racism at work in a world further threatened by climate change. Watershed takes a more expansive view of water in the Great Lakes region by
exploring four overlapping themes: Michigan Water in Crisis; Our Impact; Confronting Colonial Legacies; Water as a Life Force. This symposium will begin with an overview of treaties, laws, policies (and the movements that drove and upended them) and then takes us on a journey through the history of water, its cultural significance and how we have come to understand it today. Subsequent sessions explore the present and how uprisings, artworks, and community actions have further shaped the feel and use of water. To follow is a convening that asks participants to consider how we may imagine the future of water. In doing so, the symposium will create a “call to action” and produce a “white
paper.” Diverse practitioners have been invited in order to underscore the need for a multiplicity of voices needed to confront these issues. The Ways of Water symposium brings together perspectives of artists, activists, community members alongside those of scientists and policy makers. To understand
the many facets of how humanity and the biosphere interacts and relies on water, it is not only important for us to understand the history and present tense of
water (the politics, economies, and culture built around and with it) but how these understandings and reimaginings are vital to building a more just and
equitable future that centers water and respects it for everything it provides.

All panel discussions and presentations are free to attend and open to all. Panelists and complete symposium schedule to be announced. Please contact
Jennifer Junkermeier-Khan, Stamps Gallery at jenjkhan@umich.edu for additional information or with questions.