February 10, 2022

Rethinking Artivism

Moderator: Anushka Peres, Assistant Professor of English

Guests:

  • Jamie A. Lee, Associate Professor in the School of Information at the University of Arizona, where their research and teaching attend to critical archival theory and methodologies, multimodal media-making contexts, storytelling, and bodies. Lee’s book, Producing the Archival Body, (Routledge, 2021) interrogates how power circulates and is deployed in archival contexts to build critical understandings of how deeply archives influence and shape the production of knowledges and human subjectivities. Lee is an IMLS Early Career Grantee and an Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice Faculty Fellow. For more on their research: www.thestorytellinglab.io
  • Adela C. Licona, Founder of The Art of Change Agency, a consulting agency supporting critical voices and creative visions for consensus-driven communication, sustainable practice, structural change, and social transformation. Dr. Licona is Associate Professor Emeritus of English, University of Arizona. She is the author and co-editor of numerous articles and books including Zines in Third Space: Radical Cooperation and Borderlands Rhetoric (SUNY, 2012) Precarious Rhetorics (Ohio State, 2018). She is Editor Emeritus of Feminist Formations and currently serves on these global, national, and local advisory/editorial boards: Feminist Formations, the Primavera Foundation, Art+Feminism, and BorderLinks. As the inaugural Program Advisor, Adela looks forward to working with Eyebeam and this year’s Fractal Fellows to co-develop artist-led agreements for shared leadership and the redistribution of resources. See: www.theartofchangeagency.net
  • Lydia Huerta Moreno, Assistant Professor of Gender, Race, and Identity and Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is a feminist anti-colonial interdisciplinary scholar. Her work focuses on the ethics of representation in cultural narratives centered on migration, human rights, violence, race and gender in film and social media. Dr. Huerta Moreno is the co-editor and author of Introduction to Latinx Studies: A Social Science & Cultural Studies Reader, author of the forthcoming “Locating the (Dis)located Voices,” in Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, and author of a number of transnational feminist articles and chapters, including the forthcoming chapter “Alighting on the Digital: Trans Migrant Testimonios.” She is the winner of the 2021 Dean’s Award for Accomplishment in the Areas of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for outstanding engaged work bridging the academy and community. 

Summary: This panel will focus on artivism as an artistic practice, a site of inquiry, and a powerful force of social change. Our panelists, all working artists and/or academics dedicated to activism, will share insights learned from our work as we consider both the legacy and future of artivism—including its limitations and potientials to create lasting social change. 

Thought on Tap is brought to you by Core Humanities, the College of Liberal Arts, and Laughing Planet. Podcasts and transcripts of past Thought on Tap episodes are available on the Core Humanities website.

Figure spray painting “Rethinking Artivisim” on a brick wall.