In Brief: February 5

Art as vehicle for social change topic of guest artist

Contemporary African-American artist LaShawnda Crowe Storm will speak at 6 p.m. Friday (Feb. 6) in 204 Fine Arts Center. Her ARTalk is on “Art as a Vehicle for Dialogue and Social Change.” Crowe Storm is the creator of The Lynch Quilts Project, a community-based initiative that explores the history and ramifications of the racial violence, particularly lynching, in the United States through the textile tradition of quilting. The project itself consists of six quilts that explore the phenomenon of lynching through the perspective of gender, collective memory, communal conflict, politics and healing.

A reception will follow the lecture.

The public is invited to view the exhibition of Quilt I of the Lynch Quilts Project, “Her Name Was Laura Nelson,” in the lobby of the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery between Feb. 5 and March 5.

This quilt is the focus of BGSU second-year art history graduate student Viola Ratcliffe, who is writing her thesis under the direction of Dr. Allie Terry-Fritsch on the quilt and the role of witnessing in community formation. Ratcliffe will introduce the speaker.

In addition to the ARTalk, Crowe Storm will serve as a guest juror for the BGSU Spring 2015 BFA Thesis Exhibition and meet with high school students from Maumee Valley Day School in Toledo, where she will be featured as their Black History Month speaker.

The BGSU talk is sponsored by the BGSU Graduate Art Student Organization, the Division of Art History and the Department of Ethnic Studies, and is free and open to the public.