Spring 2024

Spring 2024 EADJ will focus on nurturing relationships with our local community, artists, partners,  students, faculty, and staff. Focusing on the hyper-local will lay the groundwork to further cement and expand our global reach.

• February 8–March 9: Jose Luis Benavides: Video Experiments at Begonia Labs, opening hours February 8, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
• February 10, 11:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m. and February 11, 12:00–6:00 p.m.: Valentine’s Card Art Activation at Nashville Black Market
• February 20, 12:00–1:00 p.m.: Lunch & Learn with writer Kashif Andrew Graham at Begonia Labs
• February 29, 5:00–6:00 p.m.: Dinner & Open House at Begonia Labs
• February 29, 6:00–8:00 p.m.: Video Screening & Artist Conversation of Un Pasado Nuevo (Someday Soon) with Jose Luis Benavides, Film Director Pablo Mazariegos, & Latino Immigration scholar Giovanni Román-Torres
• March 4–8, Dusk to Dawn: Begonia Windows: Film Screenings curated by Jose Luis Benavides
• March 7, 5:00–6:00 p.m.: A conversation with Jose Luis Benavides and Amanda Cervantes about Amigas Latinas Forever on Zoom.To register: https://vanderbilt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ao9ric-0TcmjGJHDDgiLiA#/registration
• March 20–21, 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.: The Wildflower Project (Park Location TBD)
• April 11: Poetry Benches at Fisk University
• April 11: Art Benches at Vanderbilt University
• April 18–May 31: LeXander Bryant Exhibition

• February 23–March 1, 2024 6:00–10:00 p.m.: Four Faces of the Sun, part of the 2022/2023 program, Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance, curated by Selene Wendt

  Public Art Video Installation:

  Dikenga – Four Faces of the Sun
  February 23 – March 1, 2024, 6:00–10:00 p.m.
  

  Location: John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Fisk University
  1000 17th Ave N, Nashville, TN 37208

  Reception: February 23, 2024

  5:00-7:00 p.m.

  Featuring artist Michelle EISTRUP, Artistic Fellow at the John Lewis Center for Social Justice.

  DIKENGA – FOUR FACES OF THE SUN
  A PUBLIC ART LARGE-SCALE OUTDOOR VIDEO INSTALLATION

   

  

  Lusito: To honor, Milenvo: To ask pardon to apologize. Source: Dr. Barbaro Mártinez Ruíz, Kongo Atlantic Body Language (2009)
  Mbembe Nzila: The crossroads gesture, Gods above in heaven, ancestors below within the earth. Source: Dr. Robert Farris Thompson, interview (2015) Dancers: Jaila Williams, Qwynn Foster, Thea Jones, and Henry Alumona.

   

  A community-centered and research-driven collaborative effort

  • exploring the Bakongo philosophy regarding gentleness, openness, strength, and resilience
  • revitalizing a language embodied in gestures often found in the living artifacts, niombos and nkisi’s trapped in museum collections
  • celebrating an African-American heritage that transmits real social and aesthetic values
  • highlighting the significance of spirituality at the facade of a primary place of gathered knowledge
  • representing a circular and transitional journey of human life, from which all can take inspiration

   

  Produced with the support of the Schusterman Foundation, the University Galleries and the Discipline of Art, Fisk University, and the Danish Arts Council.

  Four Faces of the Sun is part of the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice (EADJ) at Vanderbilt University’s 2022/2023 program, Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance, curated by Selene Wendt.

  For inquiries about this event, please write Lakesha Moore at Fisk University Galleries: lmoore@fisk.edu