March 18, 2021 | 5:00-6:30pm
At this time in our society, we are teetering on the edge of monumental change. Our generation has the chance to redirect the patterns, hardships, and stigmas of our past and create a brighter future. Every individual is capable of making societal change, and too often it seems like there is only one way to make a difference. In the Creative Arts as Resistance program series, created by OJMCHE’s Student Advisory Board, youth in grades 6 – 12 will explore how creative arts can be used as a means of resistance while hearing from artists who are a part of increasing representation, telling often unheard or suppressed stories, and challenging societal norms and taboos. The series consists of three different webinars, highlighting music, visual arts, and writing and is open to middle and high school students across Oregon.
After each program, participants have the option of responding to the prompt below and having their work displayed as part of a virtual exhibition.
Prompt: While we are currently in a time of telling stories often left out of mainstream media, increasing representation is an ongoing process. Think about what stories you would like to see more of, and what parts of yourself you would like represented. Use any style of writing/art/music to express your story, identity, or thoughts about representation.
Visual Arts as Resistance with Intisar Abioto and Willie Little
Visual arts have long been a method of reflecting, challenging, and reframing our world. Art can create statements about society and evoke reactions in a unique and powerful way. Whether you are interested in art, are an artist yourself, and/or are an activist, Intisar Abioto and Willie Little will inspire you. Join these two Portland-based artists for a conversation about art, identity, and resistance.
Willie Little is a Black multimedia artist and author. His visual narratives document a fading part of rural southern life while also tackling topics of racism and Black Lives Matter, social Justice, and the childhood memories of growing up on a tobacco farm in Eastern North Carolina. His memoir, In the Sticks, documents his years growing up as a poor, Black and gay child in the rural south. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area and Portland, Oregon.
Little is an artist whose genius incorporates sculpture, painting, sound installations, re-constructed architecture, re-cycled memorabilia, and real-life stories. Willie pours out his soul for all to see as he relives growing up during a time of radical change. The common thread in all the work he creates is his examination of the manifestations of physical and societal decay in American culture.
Willie received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His solo exhibits include the Smithsonian Institution, The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and the American Jazz Museum. Notable group exhibitions include the Corcoran and the California Folk Art Museum. He also participated in The Hourglass Project: Baggage, an internationally renowned residency and exhibition program, which toured venues throughout South Africa, Belgium, and Mozambique; the work is archived in a catalog published by Caversham Press. (South Africa) Learn more about Willie Little here.
Intisar Abioto (b. Memphis, TN. 1986) is an explorer-artist working across photography, dance, and writing. Moving from the visionary and embodied root of Blackgirl Southern cross-temporal cross-modal storytelling ways, her works refer to the living breath/breadth of people of African descent against the expanse of their storied, geographic, and imaginative landscapes. Working in long-form projects that encompass the visual, folkloric, documentary, and performing arts, she has produced The People Could Fly Project, The Black Portlanders, and The Black. Co-created with her four artist sisters, The People Could Fly Project, was a 200,000-mile flying arts expedition exploring realities of flight and freedom within the African diasporic myth of the flying African and Virginia Hamilton’s award-winning book, The People Could Fly.
Abioto is the recipient of a 2018 Oregon Humanities Emerging Journalists, Community Stories Fellowship for which she began a continuing body of research on the history of artists of African descent in Oregon. She has performed and/or exhibited at Ori Gallery, Portland Art Museum, Duplex Gallery, Photographic Center Northwest, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Poetry Press Week, Design Week Portland, Spelman College, Powell’s City of Books, University of Oregon White Box Gallery, Portland State University, Reed College, and Zilkha Gallery among others. Selected for an Art in the Governor’s Office solo exhibition in 2019 she exhibited and performed with nine Oregon-based Black artists against the inner expanse of the Oregon State Capitol building in Salem OR. Her publication Black Portlands documents interviews with Black Portlanders alongside her photographs. She was a contributing photographer to MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora (2017) and her photographs illustrated the Urban League of Portland’s State of Black Oregon 2015. With the five women artists in her family, she is the co-founder of Studio Abioto, a multivalent creative arts studio. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Learn more about Intisar Abioto here.
After RSVPing, you will receive an email 24 hours prior to the event with a zoom link. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this event, please contact education@ojmche.org.