Opening Conversation (online) | A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence

How has art been used to protest, process, mourn, and memorialize anti-Black violence within the United States?

Originating at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, A Site of Struggle  explores how artists have engaged with the reality of anti-Black violence and its accompanying challenges of representation in the United States over a 100+ year period. 

Join us for an online conversation to mark the opening of this exhibition.

Opening speakers include Courtney R. Baker, scholar of Black literary and visual cultures and author of Humane Insight: Looking at Images of African-American Suffering and Death; Dino Robinson, founder of Shorefront Legacy Center in Evanston; and Carl and Karen Pope, exhibition artists. They will be joined in conversation by Janet Dees, Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and curator of A Site of Struggle, to consider how the exhibition explores intersections of race, violence, visual culture, and history, and what the arts can bring to a national conversation about racial justice.

Robin R. Means Coleman, Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion; Chief Diversity Officer; Ida B. Wells and Ferdinand Barnett Professor in Communication Studies, and Natasha Trethewey, Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University and former United States Poet Laureate, will provide opening and closing remarks.

While this program is online, The Block Museum will be open from 12-5pm CST for in-person visitation of the exhibition.  The planned Opening Performace by Mendi + Keith Obadike has been rescheduled to Spring 2022.

The program will be recorded.

RSVP FOR ONLINE EVENT