Art and Education Series
Past Events
In this web series we present artist educators who actively use art as a tool to build community and create positive social and ecological change.
No. 15: "Eco Soma Methods and
Media Arts"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Petra Kuppers
August 25, 2024
How do disabled and mad people use eco-arts/eco-soma approaches to survive, dance, and insert their differences in a world full of stigma? How do we live through bodymindspirit experiences of alienation and pain, and find and embrace worlds of environmental connection, joy, spirit? In this talk, Petra Kuppers will share eco-media and dance-video approaches to disability culture. We will go on a meditative journey together, and view a few video clips, before opening into a discussion of disability and eco-arts.
No. 14: "The Circle: Relational Practice from the Studio to the Community"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Sharon Siskin
May 19, 2024
Sharon Siskin will present lots of images and stories, providing an intimate window into her community-based collaborative visual art projects in San Francisco Bay Area AIDS services communities (1988 to present), services for unhoused women and children, incarcerated people living with AIDS at California Medical Facility; and collaborations with visual artists and a poet friends addressing issues of memory, loss, and grief; her Jewish cultural lineage and cross-cultural visual ecoart dialog with a Muslim artist friend; her current project, Service Works, in collaboration with Nancer LeMoins and longtime survivors of AIDS; and her collaborative teaching with activist artist friends and colleagues at SFAI, USF, and Laney College.
No. 13: "Breathing Fire: Ice Ships Weep"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Robin Lasser
March 24, 2024
Join Lasser to experience decades of environmental art living in public space: Dress Tents, Migratory Cultures, Tents Talk & Ice Ships Weep
"I would like to invite you on a journey with me, to explore the process of making art that lives in public space. Although my projects may look physically different from one and other, the topics I have tangoed with, over the years, have connecting threads. These projects take place across the globe including Russia, India, China, Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. Image making and story sharing are central to my practice."
No. 12: "Eco Demo M.O"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Linda Weintraub
Sunday October 29, 2023
Linda Weintraub illustrates art pedagogy modeled upon ecosystem dynamics within and beyond classrooms. Her motto: "Don't teach eco art!"
Her WEAD presentation will demonstrate ecology modes of operation (DEMO ECO M.O.) as she has applied them to the diverse components of her art practice. Each was reconfigured to align with ecosystem dynamics. Environmental themes, therefore, were reinforced by the ecological models of organization that conveyed them:
Structurally, eco systems are complex.
Formally, eco systems depend upon relationships.
Temporally, eco systems involve continuous perturbations and transformations.
These dynamics assure the vitality of ecosystems. They are integrated into Weintraub’s writing, curating, lecturing, and art.
No. 11: "The Art of Lorraine Bonner: Trust and Transformation"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Lorraine Bonner
Sunday June 25, 2023
Artist Lorraine Bonner is a retired physician who realized early in her training that the bio-medical model which she was taught did not recognize the racial, gender, economic and generational trauma which impacted her patients’ health.
I was someone who knew nothing of art, yet art came to me like a life raft to a person flailing in the open sea. The early personal sculptures, almost all too painful to share, gradually became more accessible, then moved into imagery that linked my suffering to the world’s, my healing to our healing. My presentation will illustrate how art guided me from the devastating memories of my past into deeper meditations on humanity, the essential nature of trust and trustworthiness in human society, what it means to be broken and mended, and prophetic images of the future, including an unflinching recognition of the possibility of extinction.
No. 10: "Sidling up to Botany, Ecology and Geology as Artist/Art Historian"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Cynthia Brannvall
Sunday April 30, 2023
Brannvall presents interlocking artwork of cultural and historical memory in relation to black diasporic experience and identity formation.
The Identity Mapping Series are intergenerational portraits of Cynthia Brannvall’s family members collaged with historical, contemporary, and satellite maps from the countries and continents of her heritage, America, Africa, Sweden and California. The range of maps include “outdated” versions with countries that no longer exist or illustrate first nation territories in what would become the United States of America. It is a visual exploration of the artists interest in the instability of place in regard to notions of nativism and identity. The first nation peoples offer an understanding of identity as connected to seven generations before and seven generations forward. Brannvall considers this in terms of the geography and nationalism of her ancestry and concludes that it is more accurate to understand identity formation and the concept of belonging as an unstable journey. For the artist, intergenerational identity and belonging are a path that meanders through time and place with changing borders, political systems, names, and dates that are determined by exploration, conquest, colonialism, opportunity, lust, and love.
No. 9: "Creating 'Affinity': A Journey to Connection Through Collaboration"
No. 8: "Love Letter to the Planet: 50 Years of Making"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Charla Elizabeth
Sunday January 22, 2023
"This presentation will chronicle my 50+ years of creating art that honors nature and builds community. I developed an interest in art at an early age. Over the years, my interests have evolved to include art education, our ecosystems and the use of art to uplift communities in need. Collaborative sculpture has become integral to my work, and I invite you to collaborate with me on my next sculpture." - Charla Elizabeth
No. 7: "Down to Earth"
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Ann Savageau
Sunday December 4, 2022
Ann Savageau is an environmental artist, activist, poet, educator and designer who creates mixed-media sculpture and installations. She will present samples of her work from her 50-year career as an artist. Her work deals with the natural world, human culture, and their intersection. She investigates global warming and environmental destruction. One goal that runs through everything she does is to bring out the hidden beauty of waste through artistic transformation, and to promote environmental stewardship through the creative reuse of post-consumer materials. Ann has worked individually as well as with fellow artists and concerned citizens from around the world to address pressing environmental and social justice issues. Ann’s most recent installation, Guardians, addresses multiple crises facing our planet.
A Presentation & Discussion with artist Michele Guieu
Sunday October 30, 2022
This presentation will be the occasion for Michele to share how she engages with her young students and the larger public, through her recent projects, in public spaces, and at school. Michele will discuss the way she incorporates science in her work. She will explain how she reflects on the importance of the materials she uses in her work. “If we do not face the reality of the situation we have created, and if we do not realize that environment, energy, economy, and equity are connected, we will lose our chance at a future. So my work now is now oriented towards more systemic thinking, like in “Down To Earth,” my last site-specific participatory installation.” -Michele Guieu
No. 6: "The Power of WE:
Working Together"
Artists Panel Discussion with Andree Singer Thompson, Lisa Zimmer Chu, Leslie Smith, and Mary White
August 28, 2022
The August Art +Education # 6 offers a dialog on the power and value of collaboration and community, of the “WE”, working together with other artists, scientists, writers, political activists, members in community, policy makers, and the audience to further educate all involved. Moderated by Andree Singer Thompson, four artists will offer their own experiences working in communion with others, describing different forms of collaborations.
No. 5: "Ecoart in Action: Fostering Social and Ecological Change"
A presentation by Contributors and Editors
May 22, 2022
This presentation provides an overview of "Ecoart in Action: Activities, Case Studies, and Provocations for Classrooms and Communities"., newly published by New Village Press.
Compiled from 67 members of the Ecoart Network—many of whom are also WEAD members—Ecoart in Action stands as a field guide for ecoart practice. It provides adaptable strategies for engaging a wide range of learners within a variety of learning environments. Join us to celebrate this recently published remarkable book.
No. 4: "Black Spaces Matter: Exploring the Aesthetics and Architectonics of an Abolitionist Neighborhood"
A presentation by Pamela Karimi
A replay is not available but please refer to "Black Spaces Matter: Celebrating New Bedford's Abolition Row " to learn more about the exhibition and Pamela Karimi
No. 3: "Rewilding Our Muses: Shifting Our Imagined Future through Diverse Creative Practices"
A presentation by Beverly Naidus
Dec. 5, 2021
Beverly Naidus will discuss how her own creative practices, workshop facilitation, and daily life has shifted during the Pandemic to include neighbors and collaborative community art projects while offering online art workshops to process the challenges of this time and reimagine our future. She and her partner, Bob Spivey, co-direct the non-profit organization, SEEDS (Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School) that has run online discussions for socially engaged artists to adapt their work to the changing conditions of this time while facilitating the Tacoma Story Hive project which hopes to seed other projects of its kind.
No. 2: "Art is for all of us"
A presentation by Carol Newborg
Sept. 20, 2021
“Access to the arts is a vital part of survival, growth, and change for men and women in prison. Learning, focusing, collaborating and problem solving in the arts translate to skills that are used in other aspects of life, and the shared expression of universal human experience creates bridges between diverse groups. I've worked in prison art studios with California's Arts in Corrections Program for over 35 years, and the wonders of human potential for growth and transformation continually inspire me. I also organize exhibits 'over the walls' so that others can share the art and the beauty and potential of human change. We have so much to learn from people with the traumatic backgrounds of many of the incarcerated and their healing work, which can help intervene in the generational cycle of trauma. Art helps incarcerated people connect to families, to our communities, to help heal harm, and to give back to others.” -Carol Newborg
No. 1: "Art as a Healing Force"
A presentation by Andrée Singer Thompson
Aug. 23, 2021
WEAD is delighted to have Andrée Singer Thompson, Bay Area sculptor, beloved mentor, activist, educator, founder of Laney College Eco Art Matters class, present about the healing power of art. This is a special opportunity to hear about Andrée’s lifetime of creativity, love, and service—in her own words and images.