CPW SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM: RACE, ACTIVISM AND PHOTOGRAPHY
December 3 – 5, 2020
Keynote Speaker, Carrie Mae Weems, Saturday, December 5, 2020
(Woodstock, New York, November 4, 2020) – The Center for Photography at Woodstock is pleased to announce a three-day virtual social justice forum, Race, Activism and Photography, to be held on December 3-5, 2020.
The virtual forum, Race, Activism and Photography, will examine recent societal injustices, systemic racism, and the continued underrepresentation in the art world through the lenses of art and activism. This three-day symposium, featuring panel-led roundtables, lectures, and artist presentations, will amplify the voices of artists, writers, and arts professionals, the majority of whom have participated in our residency program, WOODSTOCK AIR.
Race, Activism and Photography will address an array of issues including the history of photography through the prism of race, representation and identity, and activism, and examine how these topics have evolved from 1839 to the present; the economic and social impact of systemic racism, and how these inequities have been represented in the media; how artists, within the context of fine art, are using their work to address oppression and discrimination; and, finally, how artists are responding to the challenging and unique opportunities that lie ahead in the art world.
The forum will culminate with a keynote address by esteemed photographer Carrie Mae Weems, as part of the recently endowed Arnold Newman Lectures at Woodstock series.
Moderators and lecturers for the three-day forum include Sama Alshaibi, Emilie Boone, Elizabeth Ferrer, Chris Johnson, and Courtney Reid-Eaton. Panelists and artists to join the moderators include Sophia Nahli Allison, Dannielle Bowman, Mercedes Dorame, L. Kasimu Harris, Tarrah Krajnak, Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Gabriel Garcia Román, and Claire Warden. Artist presentations and videos will be presented by Kris Graves, Daesha Devón Harris, Dionne Lee, and Lorena Molina.
Support for this program was received through the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation. Additional support was received through the NYSCA NEA Cares Act Grant.
ABOUT KEYNOTE SPEAKER CARRIE MAE WEEMS
Through image and text, film and performance, and her many convenings with individuals across a multitude of disciplines, Carrie Mae Weems has created a complex body of work that centers on her overarching commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past.
Weems has received a multitude of awards, grants, and fellowships including the MacArthur Award; US Department of State’s Medals of Arts; Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome; the National Endowment of the Arts; and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, among many others.
Major solo exhibitions of Weems’s work include Carrie Mae Weems: The Museum Series, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, and traveled to: Portland Art Museum, Portland; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University; and the Guggenheim Museum, New York.
She is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Tate Modern, London, England; the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Weems has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery.
Weems has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery. She lives in Syracuse, New York with her husband, Jeffrey Hoone, who is the Executive Director of Light Work.
ABOUT THE WOODSTOCK AIR PROGRAM AND CPW
Twenty-one years ago, the Center for Photography at Woodstock’s acclaimed residency program was created to support photography-based artists and writers of color, and to expand the dialogue around diversity, race, and identity in the context of social justice. To date, 137 artists and writers have participated in the program. After a pause due to the coronavirus pandemic, CPW’s WOODSTOCK AIR programming resumed in October 2020.
Founded in 1977, the Center for Photography at Woodstock is an artist-centered nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting artists working in photography and related media and engaging audiences through opportunities in which creation, discovery, and learning are made possible.
ABOUT THE ARNOLD NEWMAN FOUNDATION
The Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation was established in 2007. The Foundation’s mission is to further the legacy of Arnold Newman by supporting photographers and photography students, and helping to disseminate Newman’s photographic works. The Foundation supports the annual Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture, scholarships at the Maine Media Workshops, lectures on photography, and exhibits of Newman’s work.
Press images are available upon request.
Carrie Mae Weems
© Audoin Desforges for Rolex