Rumors of Necessity Exhibit

Rumors of Necessity: Asianx Artists

Cover Image: Never Again Is Now by Emily Hanako Momohara; photography by Chad Jackson Rumors of Necessity: Asianx Artists Š Slocumb Galleries and participating artists, 2020 | All rights reserved Images and artist statements courtesy of the artists. | Gallery exhibition images taken by the Curator and Slocumb Galleries’ staff.

All images and work are copyright property of the artists. | Catalogue design by Karlota Contreras-Koterbay.

Printed by ETSU Biomed. ETSU is an AA/EEO employer. ETSU-CAS-0059-19 50

Rumors of Necessity: Asianx Artists Paul Pak-hing Lee Richard A. Lou Emily Hanako Momohara Sisavanh Phouthavong Hong-An Truong Curated by Filipinx Alejandro Acierto with LGBTQ filmaker PJ Raval Film and Exhibition, November 2019, Tipton Gallery

Recipient of Tennessee Association of Museums (TAM) Publication Award 2020

Rumors of Necessity: Asianx Artists Rumors of Necessity is an exhibition that positions Asian American bodies in relation to conditions of surveillance, militarization, and exclusion in an era of ongoing wars along the US border and abroad. Hinged on the notion of the rumor where contemporary anxieties around difference have often been the result of mis-information, this exhibition draws on contemporary Asian American artists in Tennessee and the archive to articulate strategies of the state to enact corporeal control through militarization and exclusion. Foregrounding our contemporary moment where racial profiling of Muslim and Latinx communities emerges as an ongoing trope of 45’s administration and is further propelled by broader social anxieties that have amplified white supremacist ideologies, this exhibition works to present alternative forms of embodiment that speak back to historical traumas of militarization and exclusion. With Tennessee-based artists Paul Pak-hing Lee, Richard A. Lou, and Sisavanh Phouthavong with Hong-Ân Truong and Emily Hanako Momohara, the works in this show will be in direct conversation with Tennessee’s racialized past where their work will be paired alongside images and ephemera from the era of Japanese internment at Camp Forrest in Tullahoma, TN and with the establishment of confederate monuments that remain erected to this day.

Paired alongside images and ephemera from Japanese internment at Camp Forrest where tropes of exclusion and militarization immediately intersect within the moment of forced incarceration, the work by these artists begins to engage in increasingly significant dialogues as we grapple with contemporary concerns over borders, nationhood, and the rumors surrounding patriotism and allegiance. Speaking directly to surveillance cultures in the contemporary moment, Paul Pak-hing Lee’s wallpapers and photographs draw on images of surveillance sourced from security camera footage to probe questions about the necessity of security theaters across public spaces and for whom surveillance cameras actually serve. Working with and alongside community stakeholders who have been in engaged conversation around the presence of confederate monuments throughout the Memphis region, Richard A. Lou has devised a series of performances, videos, and photographs that interrogate the necessity of icons and the role of iconic figures in contemporary society.

Reflecting on the impact of displacement as a result of war, Sisavanh Phouthavong’s paintings confront legacies of trauma that offer the necessary space for healing and community. With these works, Rumors of Necessity closes the gaps of the unsaid to draw us closer to knowledge, to develop a language of sanctuary devoid of exclusion, and to reshape the trajectories of trust in an era of unease. Hong-Ân Truong’s carbon prints on mirror are images of protests while her prints on paper are manifesto for self determination by various minority groups in the US. Emily Hanako Momohara’s ‘Never Again Is Now’ billboard of a historic Japanese internment camp with two children inserted in the image revisualizes the trauma imposed on the families who were/are incarcerated in the past and in contemporary time.

About the Curator: Alejandro T. Acierto is an artist and musician whose work is largely informed by the breath, the voice, and the processes that enable them. He has exhibited artworks at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Issue Project Room, MCA Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, and Roman Susan and presented performance works at Rapid Pulse Performance Art Festival, the Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, the KANEKO, Center for Performance Research, and Center for New Music and Technology. Recent projects were shown at the 2019 Havana Biennial in Matanzas and Boundary Gallery in Chicago. Noted for his “insatiable” performance by the New York Times, Acierto has performed written and improvised music extensively throughout the US and abroad as a soloist and chamber musician. He is also a clarinetist and founding member of the Chicago-based new music collective Ensemble Dal Niente.

Acierto has held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, VCCA, Banff Centre, High Concept Laboratories, LATITUDE, Chicago Artists’ Coalition and was an FT/FN/FG Consortium Fellow and a Center Program Artist at the Hyde Park Art Center. A 3Arts Awardee, he received his undergraduate degree from DePaul University, an MM from Manhattan School of Music, an MFA in New Media Arts from University Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and was an inaugural Artist in Residence for Critical Race Studies at Michigan State University. He is currently an Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Digital Art and New Media at Vanderbilt University. http://alejandroacierto.com/bio

Diverse and Empowered: ETSU Tipton and Slocumb Galleries’ Diversity Program The ETSU Tipton and Slocumb Galleries serve as ‘diversity culture kitchens’ in the region of Northeast Tennessee and surrounding communities. Every month, both galleries present exhibitions of diverse forms, media, perspective, featuring artists of color, diverse genders and (dis)abilities; offering free and open to the public events that include exhibitions, lectures, films, workshops, art demos and community engagement activities that bring the art out of the galleries to at-risk and/or senior centers.

The ’Diverse & Empowered’ series of exhibitions, film showings and lectures is funded by the ETSU Student Activities Allocation Committee (SAAC), Departent of Art & Design, the East Tennessee Foundation (ETF) Arts Fund and partners. It is part of the continuing program of ETSU Tipton & Slocumb Galleries to provide the regional communities, both academic and local surrounding areas access to contemporary visual art, studio craft, and cultural diversity that feature artists of various gender, color and (dis)abilities. Northeast Tennessee and Southeast Appalachian regions in general are stereotyped as geographically and culturally isolated, yet, efforts in the university and the various communities reveal the colorful and rich diverse pockets of cultural melting pots and various ranges of artistic, economic, social and cultural exchanges that prove these areas as dynamic, evolving and historically creative. ‘Diverse & Empowered’ is a continuation of last year’s program ‘Diverse & Beautiful’ also funded by the SAAC and the ETF’s Arts Fund, with the Arts Build Community (ABC) Grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission through the First Tennessee Development District.

The ETSU Tipton & Slocumb Galleries’ strongest resource is the collaborative nature of projects that capitalize on good community partnerships. The galleries have developed as centers of art and cultural activities in the region, providing consistent and well planned diverse exhibitions, providing monthly receptions during Downtown First Friday in the case of Tipton Gallery and annual festival partners with Umoja Unity Festival, Corazon Latino, ETSU Native American Powwow and Downtown Johnson City’s Little Chicago and Blue Plum. The Tipton Gallery also serves as venue for the annual 5x5 Art Exhibition and Fundraiser for the Johnson City Public Art Committee (JCPAC).

We have also increased partnerships with local public schools such as Northside Elementary, Holston Elementary, Southside Elementary, University School, Toppers High School Academy as well as senior and youth centers like the Youth Village, girls inc., and Boys & Girls Club, extending from Washington to Knox counties. The Slocumb Galleries have also initiated pilot diversity and exhibition programs that are bequeathed to other student and local groups. Our partnership with the Language & Culture Resource Center and the Jonesborough Art Center have started and provided the latter’s initial exhibitions of Latin American, African American diversity programs.

Project Director: Karlota Contreras-Koterbay ETSU Tipton and Slocumb Galleries Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay develops diverse year-round exhibition/educational programs of innovative exhibits and collaborative activities with the academic and local communities.

Contreras-Koterbay’s curatorial philosophy advances the potential of art as agency; her projects promote social justice, cultural diversity & inclusivity, critical thinking and social awareness. She is recipient of various grants for programs including TAC Arts Project Support (APS) Grant, TAC Arts Build Communities (ABC) Grant, ETSU BUC Funds, ETSU Student Activities Allocation Committee (SAAC), Mary B. Martin School of the Arts (MBMSOTA), Andy Warhol Legacy Program, and the East Tennessee Foundation’s (ETF) Arts Fund.

Contreras-Koterbay initiated the formation of the sponsored downtown satellite exhibition venue, the Tipton Gallery, and has secured it as an in-kind gift to the university from 2007-2016. She has organized the Friends of the Slocumb Galleries, the SG Student Guild and the Slocumb Galleries’ Curatorial Internship Program. She has juried the ‘Dogwood Festival Regional Fine Art Exhibition’ (2009) in Knoxville, Tennessee; ‘Kingsport Arts Guild Annual Exhibition’ (2012, 2019); Jonesborough’s McKinney Center for the Arts Fine Arts in the Park (2017); Morristown’s Rose Center members’ annual Exhibition (2018); and served as one of three jurors for the $50,000 ‘Hunting Art Prize 2013’ in Houston, Texas. During Spring of 2017, she initiated the project ‘ETSU Privilege Walk’ in partnership with the Multicultural Center and various units and student organizations on campus including HEROES, Office of Multicultural Affairs, ETSU Votes, Civility Week, Department of Sustainability, Black Affairs, Women’s Studies Program, Minority Association of Pre-Health Students, and many more.

She was a Panelist for the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Art Education Grant (2017, 2018) and member of the International Council on Museums (ICOM), Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC), TN Association of Museums (TAM), Tennesseans for the Arts, Association of Academic Museums & Galleries (AAMG), American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and International Association of Aesthetics (IAA). She was former Board Director of Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) and Board Member at the National Commission for Culture & the Arts (NCCA). Contreras-Koterbay received the ETSU Distinguished Staff in 201. She was recognized for Best New Program for the Native American Festival, earned the Jan Phillips Mentor Award in 2015, and was nominated for the Tennessee Governor’s Award in 2016. She is founding Board Director and Vice President for Curatorial Programming for American Museum of Philippine Art. https://www.etsu.edu/cas/art/galleries/staff.php

Call Her Ganda (Beautiful) Documentary by Filipinx LGBTQ Fimaker PJ Raval When 26-year old Filipina transgender woman and alleged sex worker, Jennifer Laude, is found dead with her head plunged into a motel room toilet, the perpetrator is quickly identified as 19-yearold U.S. marine Joseph Scott Pemberton. A military recruit in an unfamiliar land, Pemberton was on “liberty leave” when he solicited Jennifer at a disco. On discovering that Jennifer was transgender, he brutally murdered her, leaving her to be found by her friend and the motel receptionist.

Amidst a media storm and police inquiry, as Jennifer’s family copes with their loss, three women intimately invested in the case, pursue justice—taking on hardened histories of U.S. imperial rule that have allowed previous American perpetrators to evade consequence: An activist attorney, Virgie Suarez, who labors to reveal the truth of Jennifer’s death from inside the courtroom—in the face of strategic silences and sly legal maneuvers from Pemberton’s defense team. A transgender investigative journalist, Meredith Talusan, who determines to bring international attention to the case, writing sharp, in-the-fray essays for VICE, The Guardian and Buzzfeed. And Jennifer’s normally reserved mother, Julita, who finds herself at the affective center of a political uprising, inciting fellow protesters with a tenacious voice she never knew existed.

A modern David and Goliath story, CALL HER GANDA follows a cast of willful women as they take on some of the most powerful institutions in the world. Fusing personal tragedy, human rights activism and the little known history, and complex aftermath, of U.S. imperial rule in the Philippines, CALL HER GANDA forges a visually daring and profoundly humanistic geopolitical investigative exposé.

This event is made possible through a partnership between the Department of Art & Design, Slocumb Galleries, the Department of Media and Communication, Radio, TV and Film Program, the Department of Literature and Language, Film Studies Program, the Women’s Studies Program, American Museum of Philippine Art, the East Tennessee Foundation’s Arts Fund, and the Tennessee Arts Commission. http://www.callherganda.com/

Filipinx LGBTQ Fimaker PJ Raval PJ Raval’s latest film CALL HER GANDA is a feature documentary following the story of Jennifer Laude, a local transgender woman who was found dead in a motel room in the port city of Olongapo, Philippines with a 19-year-old U.S. marine as the leading suspect. CALL HER GANDA world premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival followed by an international premiere at HotDocs in Toronto, Canada. The Hollywood Reporter hailed the film “As suspenseful as it is moving”; Now Magazine in Canada gave it 4 N’s and called it “Unflinching and eye-opening.” CALL HER GANDA opened in theaters fall of 2019 earning over a dozen Grand Jury Best Documentary and Audience Choice Awards as well as several critics’ awards and nominations including a 2019 GLAAD Media Award, 2019 Gawad Urian Filipino Film Critics Award, and a 2019 Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences Best Documentary nomination. CALL HER GANDA recently aired on POV reaching millions of PBS viewers across the US and “continues to make its way into classrooms and community screenings across the world.”

PJ Raval is more recently known as an award-winning filmmaker than he is an ex-scientist born on Tax Day. Growing up as a queer, first-generation Filipino American in a small, white, conservative town in California’s central valley, PJ’s outsider experience greatly shaped his filmmaking practice.

Raval’s work explores the overlooked subcultures and identities within the already marginalized LGBTQ+ community. Named one of Out Magazine’s ‘OUT 100’ and IndieWIRE’s ‘25 LGBT Filmmakers on the Rise 2019’. Raval’s body of film work has been distributed widely internationally and has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, Bertha Foundation, Arcus Foundation, Sundance, Center for Asian-American Media, Tribeca Film Institute, Firelight Media, PBS, and the Ford Foundation. PJ is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, 2016 Firelight Media Fellow, 2017 Robert Giard Fellow, a Producers Guild of America member, and a recent member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Raval also produced, directed, and shot (alongside collaborator Jay Hodges) the feature documentary TRINIDAD: Transgender Frontier which uncovers Trinidad, Colorado’s transformation from Wild West outpost to “sex change capital of the world.” Called “a must see” by Ellen Huang (GLAAD), TRINIDAD won the Cleveland International Film Festival “Documentary Jury Award” and was broadcast on SHOWTIME as well as MTV’s LOGO network, STARZ, and Discovery International and continues to reach audiences around the world.

https://unraval.com/about/

http://www.paulleestudio.com/

Paul Pak-hing Lee, Tennessee “Do security cameras and other safety imaging devices make us feel more secure? Or are their detailed and time-stamped freeze frame images faithful witnesses to the aftermath of violent events?

This series of digital collages are inspired by images of violence captured on security cameras. As the cameras attempt to reveal the hidden identity of the perpetrators, their ubiquity also masks the fear that we all have come to accept in our daily lives.

The series addresses the omnipresence of security surveillance cameras and how they desensitize our concerns for civil liberty. The domestic images of curtain fabric, quilts, wallpaper and rugs, things that we live with and often take for granted, become metaphors for how we are living with the constant presence of surveillance.”

Paul Pak-hing Lee is an artist living and working in the United States. He was born in Hong Kong and spent his early childhood in Macau. He earned his M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, an A.B. from Hamilton College, New York and an International Baccalaureate from the United World College of the Atlantic, Llantwit Major, Wales.

Lee’s work has been included in group and solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, San Antonio, Nashville, Geneva, Istanbul, Singapore and Vladivostok, Russia. Lee was the recipient of many grants and awards, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Research Fellowship to China and two Rockefeller Foundation Travel Grants. He also received artist residencies from the New York State Council on the Arts, The Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia and the Universidade de São José in Macau.

Paul Lee has over 30 years of teaching experience at the university level. He currently is a professor at the University of Tennessee School of Art. He teaches classes in digital and film photography.

In addition to teaching in the U.S. he has held visiting professorships at universities in China and Macau.

Designs for Walls, Screens, Curtains and Other Security Blankets, Archival print on Epson paper

“As a Chicano Artist, the recurrent themes are the subjugation of my community by the Dominant Culture and White Privilege. These works manifest themselves in the creation of counter-images and counter-definitions made in a self-determinant manner. As a contemporary image-maker, I am interested in collecting dissonant ideas and narratives allowing them to bump into each other, to coax new meanings and possibilities that dismantle the hierarchy of images. The work serves as an ideological, social, political, and cultural matrix from which I understand my place in this world and to make a simple marking of the cultural shifts of my community. The artwork examines how communities use images and language to dehumanize the “Other” in order to ignore the “Other’s” basic human rights. It challenges unquestioned claims to territory and legal status.

The work that I create as a Chicano Artist emanates and is in response to the love I have for my family. The work embraces the contradictions, the conflicts and triumphs, the quiet and raucous moments of a routine day, the flowering, the decaying, the markings and ceremonies that compose a lifetime all within a society that subjugates. At the core, all work I do is for them. And in that hopeful light, I am willing to take the chance that the power of the work will ultimately save my children who will become the inhabitants of a New Nepantla as they negotiate a home in this destabilized world.” https://locatearts.org/artists/richard-lou https://www.memphis.edu/art/people/rlou.php

Richard A. Lou, Tennessee Richard Alexander Lou was born in San Diego, California and raised in San Diego and Tijuana, BCN, Mexico. Lou grew up in a biracial family which was spiritually and intellectually guided by both an anti-colonialist Chinese father and culturally affirming Mexicana mother. He received an A.A. from Southwestern College, Chula Vista, California (1981); B.A. in Fine Arts from California State University (1983); and M.F.A. in Fine Art from Clemson University, South Carolina (1986).

Lou has over 25 years of teaching experience in higher education, over 20 years of arts administration experience, has curated/organized over 50 exhibitions, and continues to produce and exhibit art while teaching and chairing the Department of Art at the University of Memphis. He has exhibited in venues that include: DePaul Art Museum, and Mexican Fine Arts Museum, Chicago, Illinois; Wing Luke Museum, Seattle, Washington; Texas Tech University, Lubbock, and Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas; Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico; Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Photographic Arts, Balboa Park, San Diego, and Newport Harbor Art Museum, California; Cornerhouse Art Gallery, Manchester, England; the 3rd International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum, Turkey; Dong-A University, Busan, South Korea; Miami Museum, Florida; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Otis School of Art and Design, Los Angeles, California; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston, Massachussetts; Aperto 90’ Section, La Biennale Di Venezia, Italy; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, Dia Foundation, and Artist Space in New York. His work has been published in various publication and over 30 scholarly books that include: The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Popular Culture, edited by Frederick Aldama, Routledge Press 2016; Born of Resistance: Cara a Cara Encounters with Chicana/o Visual Culture, edited by Scott L. Baugh and Victor A. Sorell, University of Arizona Press 2015; War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art, edited by Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis, Washington Press 2013; ARTE≠VIDA: ACTIONS BY ARTISTS OF THE AMERICAS 1960-2000, El Museo Del Barrio, New York, edited by Deborah Cullen 2008; POSTBORDERCITY: Cultural Spaces of Baja Alta California, edited by Michael Dear and Gustavo Leclerec, 2004. Whiteness: A Wayward Construction, Laguna Art Museum, California, 2003. Essays

by Tyler Stallings, Ken Gonzales-Day, Amelia Jones, David R. Roediger; Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art, Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University. Curated exhibition and wrote curator’s essay “The Secularization of the Chicano Visual Idiom: Diversifying the Iconography”; AMERICAN VISIONS/VISIONES DE LAS AMERICAS: ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, Arts International (NY), Fall 95, co-edited by Mary Jane Jacob, et al.

MAPPING THE TERRA IN: NEW GENRE PUBLIC ART, University of California Press, edited by Suzanne Lacy; ENGLISH IS BROKEN HERE: NOTES OF CULTURAL FUSION IN THE AMERICAS, The New Press, New York City.

Family Incarceration: Never Again is Now by Emily Hanako Momohara was originally produced

by For Freedoms as a billboard in Nampa, Idaho during the fall 2018 50 State Initiative. Later, the billboard was produced again in partnership with United Photo Industries and exhibited at the Photoville 2019 festival in Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City.

Emily Hanako Momohara grew up near Seattle, Washington and earned her BFA in Photography and her BA in Art History from the University of Washington. She went on to receive her MFA in Expanded Media from the University of Kansas. She is Associate Professor of Art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati where she heads the photography major. Momohara has exhibited nationally, most notably in a 2-person show at the Japanese American National Museum. She has been a visiting artist at several residency programs including the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Headlands Center for the Arts, Fine Arts Work Center and Red Gate Gallery Beijing. She received a 2011 Ohio Arts Council Excellence Grant. In 2015, her work was included in the Chongqing Photography and Video Biennial. http://ehmomohara.com

http://ehmomohara.com/assets/pf_momohara_wtr2014.pdf

Emily Hanako Momohara, Ohio (excerpt from Emily Hanako momohara: The Archaeology of Family by Judith Turner-Yamamoto) Emily Hanako Momohara creates conceptual landscapes in homage to her Japanese and Hawaiian heritage. Intrigued by collective memory and its relationship tothe imagination, her images combine the real and fic-tional to create places that explore familial history, legacy, myth and belonging. Dealing with issues of loss and death, many of Momohara’s photographs take their inspiration from Japanese scroll paintingsdepicting the four seasons — where nature’s cycle symbolizes the order of life, death and regeneration. Fleeting memories slip away, while revelation and growth evolve through time. Eerily beautiful, dark and strangely quiet, Momohara’s photographs convey at once the idea of obscurity and the quest for information.

“Near the end of my undergraduatestudies, I began visiting World War II relocation centers. My family had been sent to Minidoka in Idaho... My great-grandparents emigrated from Japan. My grandfather’s family came from Okinawa in the 1890s and settled in Hawaii. My grandmother’s family came from southern Honshuin the 1920s and settled in Seattle. So they had been in the States long before the war. My grandfather volunteered for the Army and was in Europe for most of it... The sense of place defined by this connection is a thread through all my work. With ‘Desert Sands,’ I physically and literally used the desert to investigate the experience of the incarceration camps. Access to these stories and the opportunity to hear what happened is slipping by.

She (grandmother) doesn’t like to talk about it — it’s very painful. For her, the whole incarceration experience belongs in the past. She can’t understand my desire to connect with it....

It’s also about legacy, about exploring cultural elements that are woven into my experience. I use materials that are part of the landscape to try to reconstruct a history, much of which has been lost. The work began with Hawaii. To my Hawaiian relatives, I’m the ‘haole’/out-sider/mainlander cousin. I’ve always felt included and excluded, a bit like being half-Japanese. In Seattle, when I would get introduced, I was ‘hapa yonsei,’ fourth generation half-Japanese. Even though the Japanese Seattle community embraced me, I’m still ‘hapa yonsei’... I think about the whole idea of history or legacy as a puzzle, putting facts and myths together...who knows what the truth is? Is truth really what fact is, or is myth truth? Then there are the stories our families chose to tell us. I grew up thinking my ancestors lived on an island called Momohara... The whole mystique dissolved when we started finding out the facts behind the stories. You can’t take away what that adage means to a family. It’s like trying to reconcile all these new facts with what I already had in my mind, and that’s the intersection where the work is born.”

https://www.sisavanhphouthavong.com/

Sisavanh Phouthavong, Tennessee “As a refugee, the process of connecting and disconnecting with a place or community are abstracted ideas of migration as an immigrant. The collage and painting process is unpredictable and is an ongoing dialogue about assimilating and relocating into another culture and space. The work capture and embrace architecture and built environment in its state of flux. Teetering between realism and abstraction, I fold space and time to connect with the fleeting world. To achieve a kaleidoscopic effect, I employ multiple viewpoints, rhythmic fragmentations, and strong color contrast to fuse both the contemporary and historical landscape elements into one.

Her work is included in several collections, including the ‘Amistad Collection’, housed at Tulane University, and the ‘Blanche and Norman Francis Collection,’ housed at Xavier University of LA. In addition, she has a public sculpture, commissioned by the City of New Orleans, ‘Buddy Bolden,’ located in Louis Armstrong Park. Her work has been reviewed and published, both regionally and nationally, in various publications, including: Sculpture magazine and Art Papers.”

Sisavanh Phouthavong is one of the first professional Lao American visual artists and educators of her generation. Over 5,400 Lao refugees resettled in Kansas in the aftermath of the Laotian Civil War that ended in 1975. Through her powerful acrylic work, she confronts the challenges of bicultural memory and documentation. She considers notions of the abstract and the concrete for those who must remember both their inner and external histories in a diaspora framed by secrecy and loss. Her work probes what is shared, what is felt, and what must remain deeply personal among the lessons passed on to the next generation as it heals and rebuilds.

Courtesy of Bryan Thao Worra: Laotian Poet, writer.

‘Rain’: 80 Million Cluster Bombs did not Detonate after 270 million were dropped on Laos: Secret War on Laos, 80 Mixed media collage on paper, 8 Feet x 10 feet Installation

http://www.hongantruong.com

Hong-An Truong, North Carolina ‘We Are Beside Ourselves’ mourns nothing, gives up nothing, makes no sense of history. Assuming the dispossession of our own histories, assuming the losses that define the textures of our positions, the discrete works in this show assert a space for desire and belonging in the face of a racist imaginary that relies on difference and subjection. The title of the show takes its inspiration from queer literary theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s book Touching Feeling, which conceptualizes beside as a nonbinaristic, non-dualistic spacialization, allowing for a non-linear logic that opens up possibilities to imagine identity as a multiplicity of “desiring, identifying, representing, repelling, differentiating, mimicking...” We Are Beside Ourselves is the first installment of a larger project that attempts to respond to our current political crisis vis a vis the delirious promise and desire of radical politics.

Mining archives of what seems to be the familiar history of the 1960s and 1970s radical liberation movements, these photo-based works, including carbon transfer photographs on mirror and lithographic prints, begin to make legible a political genealogy that draws out the intertwined and parallel relationships between the individual and the collective, the personal and the political. The works in ‘We Are Beside Ourselves’ forges a material history for Asian American resistance, a history that frames the visualization of political identities in photographic terms of the legible. It asks: What is unseen? What has been refused to be acknowledged? Ultimately, the installation of works suggests the powerful intimacies in political positions and attempts to “cultivate the epistemological and historical archive of solidarity.”

Hong-An Truong uses photography, sound, video, and performance to examine histories of war and immigrant and refugee narratives through a decolonial framework. By interrogating archival materials, she examines the production of knowledge through structures of time and memory. Her interdisciplinary projects are premised on the concept that aesthetic battles are also political and ideological battles. Her work has been shown internationally including at the International Center for Photography, Art in General, The Drawing Center and the Kitchen in New York; Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires; Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey; The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, North Carolina among others. Most recently, she exhibited in Prospect.4 New Orleans: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, and her collaborative work with Huong Ngô was included in Being: New Photography 2018 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Truong received her MFA at the University of California, Irvine and was a studio art fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program. She is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for the MFA Program in the Art Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Call Her Ganda Panelists and Moderator Shara K. Lange is founder and director of Light Projects: Documentary/Art/Community and completed her MFA in film production at the University of Texas at Austin’s Radio/TV/Film department.

Her thesis film, THE WAY NORTH (Student Academy Award Regional Semi-Finalist), tells the story of North African immigrant women in southern France. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to make the documentary, THE DRESSMAKERS (currently in post-production). She has worked various film projects including Habitat Media’s, EMPTY OCEANS, EMPTY NETS and Steven Okazaki’s, REHAB. https://www.etsu.edu/cas/mcom/overview/faculty.html PJ Raval is more recently known as an award-winning filmmaker than he is an ex-scientist born on Tax Day. Growing up as a queer, first-generation Filipino American in a small, white, conservative town in California’s central valley, PJ’s outsider experience greatly shaped his filmmaking practice.

Raval’s work explores the overlooked subcultures and identities within the already marginalized LGBTQ+ community. Raval also produced, directed, and shot (alongside collaborator Jay Hodges) the feature documentary TRINIDAD: Transgender Frontier which uncovers Trinidad, Colorado’s transformation from Wild West outpost to “sex change capital of the world..” Called “a must see”

by Ellen Huang (GLAAD), TRINIDAD won the Cleveland International Film Festival “Documentary Jury Award” and was broadcast on SHOWTIME as well as MTV’s LOGO network, STARZ, and Discovery International and continues to reach audiences around the world.

In addition to his feature documentary work, Raval also continues to collaborate on a collection of highly charged, not-safe-for-work videos with performer and “provocateur” Paul Soileau (a.k.a.

CHRISTEENE) under the name “Three dollar Cinema.” Also an award-winning cinematographer, Raval’s work has earned him awards such as the ASC Charles B. Lang Jr. Heritage Award as well as the Haskell Wexler Award for Best Cinematography. He has been featured in American Cinematographer and shot the 2009 Academy Award nominated and 2008 Sundance Film Festival Documentary Grand Jury Award Winner TROUBLE THE WATER produced/directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal (FAHRENHEIT 9/11). Manohla Dargis with The New York Times called the film “SUPERB… One of the best American documentaries in recent memory.” Raval’s feature cinematography credits also include, the 2006 Independent Spirit Award nominated narrative feature ROOM (Sundance, Cannes Director’s Fortnight), the Los Angeles Film Festival Narrative Feature Award winner GRETCHEN, and SUNSET STORIES directed by Silas Howard (FX POSE) & Ernesto Foronda (BETTER LUCK TOMORROW). http://unraval.com/about/biography/ (excerpt)

www.etsu.edu/univrela/accent/13_new_employees.php h t t p s : / / w w w. e t s u . e d u / c a s / p h i l o s o p hy / f a c u l t y _ s t a f f / d r o u i l l a r d . p h p Dr. Mimi Perreault is an innovative thinker and motivator. She seeks to empower future communicators with writing and editing skills. She encourages those she trains to see beyond the bounds of current communication practices while grounding themselves in the rich history of the industry. She is a self-motivated problem solver and team player. Her expertise is in community-media relations, brand journalism and helping local non-profits develop strategic communication plans.

Perreault has researched local journalists, public relations practitioners, and citizen scientists as both stakeholders and disaster communicators. After working as a journalist and public relations professional in Washington, DC and South Florida she sees the role of the local journalist during a natural disaster as one that can engage community response and build community resilience. Perreault has been published in Games and Culture, Disasters, Communication Studies, and Journalism Education. ​ er research program examines the complex web of professions involved in the H maintenance and development of natural disaster information and community resilience. Perreault is an assistant professor of media and communication in the Department of Media and Communication at East Tennessee State University. She was formerly a research assistant professor in the Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics (RIEEE), in the Appalachian Energy Center, and lecturer in the department of communication at Appalachian State University. She holds a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, masters of arts from the department of Communication, Culture and Technology at Georgetown University, and a bachelor’s of arts in journalism from Baylor University. https://www.mimiperreault.com/

Call Her Ganda: Documentary Film by LGBTQ Filmaker PJ Raval & Panelists

Jill Drouillard Ph.D. is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities after serving as a philosophy instructor at Richland College.

She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Université Paris-Sorbonne. Dr. Chandra Feltman is a visiting professor in the Department of Psychology. She was previously a staff psychologist at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where she earned her Ph.D.

Call Me Ganda (Beautiful) Documentary

by Filipinx LGBTQ Filmmaker PJ Raval

Rumors of Necessity Reception @ Tipton

Students Mentoring: ETSU Music, Art & Des

sign, and Carver Recreational Youth Center

Fl3tcher Exhibit: Social & Politically-Engaged Art 2019 @ the Reece Museum - Featured Asian Artists

THE 2019 FL3TCH3R EXHIBIT The 2019 Fl3tcher Exhibit is the seventh annual international juried exhibit focused on social and politically engaged art. Social and politically engaged art has been integral in creative expression since the beginning of visual arts. This exhibition’s goal is that these collective creative works will hopefully serve as an avenue or agent for societal transformation and exposure of social and political points of view. The purpose is to recognize and advance this endeavor by providing a venue for the exhibition of social and politically engaged art. Furthermore, the exhibit’s proceeds after expenses will fund the Fletcher H. Dyer Memorial Scholarship for art and design students.

About Fletcher Hancock Dyer: age 22, was lost too soon in a motorcycle accident in Johnson City, Tennessee on November 5, 2009. Fletcher was a senior in the Department of Art and Design at East Tennessee State University pursuing a concentration in Graphic Design under a Bachelor of Fine Arts program. Fletcher used as a preface for an essay he wrote as a high school senior the quote: “Every great work of art is offensive to someone, for a work of art is a protest against things as they are and proclamation of things as they ought to be.” - Gerald W. Johnson As an artist and graphic designer, Fletcher’s passion for art was a vehicle that allowed him to mirror his passion and marry it to his concern for social and political issues through visual means. Fletcher was always curious and aware of current events; he experimented in innovative ways to create works that investigate contemporary social issues. New, unexpected ideas and perspectives had unique ways of coming to the surface. Fletcher wrote, “I dream of making a difference in some way with my art, I might attempt to right political, social, and religious wrongs by showing the rest of society a glimpse of how I feel about serious issues in the world... Hopefully the awareness that I can help create will spark an interest in a movement that others will follow.”

Fletcher’s work embodies a purposeful, deliberate perspective of his personal endeavor to employ art as social and political commentary. THE FL3TCH3R EXHIBIT aspires to honor Fletcher’s legacy by providing a venue for artists to exhibit artworks that continue the dialogue. http://fl3tch3rexhibit.com/

JUROR’S STATEMENT “We are bombarded with social political art, it comes in the form of propaganda from the hard right, who don’t need to enter art shows like these, to be seen; they own the big show. The fog of capitalism, the endless lies, puts people to sleep. Fascism is capitalism plus murder, easier to accomplish if people are asleep. It’s strange then, that when ‘political art’ is ever discussed, the assumption is - it originates from the Left. The Right has done such a thorough job of removing any cultural resistance or memory of those who resisted.

To analyze why there is so little culture defined as Peoples’ Art, as opposed to Corporate Mass Art, requires that we see the amount of force used, to crush any depiction of reality, any struggle against oppression. Hundreds of thousands of people can demonstrate against injustice, over and over again, the wheels turn, but the cogs never engage to create change….yet.

The primary weapon in the removal of Peoples’ Art, is economic censorship. The global struggle against the thugs of corporate global domination, is unpaid grass roots activism, which cannot be bought, as is not for sale. Young cultural workers cannot afford food, let alone have art supplies or a little place to live, yet they continue to paint and write and dance. In this arena of moral equivalency, where those who whisper about the truth are equal to those who have the bullhorn to insist the earth is flat because we don’t fall off, there is an even bigger force, inertia and indifference.

The cat flap was left open, the autocrats, dictators, and worse, have moved into the house. It’s going to take an almighty struggle, a united front, to get them out of our home, which is being destroyed faster than we can comprehend. The crime is economics, and the time is soon for the collapse of all we knew. It’s impossible for the political art of resistance to exist, without being aligned and useful to a greater political class struggle for human economic justice, justice for all life, streams and trees and mountains, birds and animals and aquatic creatures. Life before profit.

There are hints of an emergence of a larger struggle in these works, outrage at gun violence, structural racism and misogyny, criminalization of refugees and immigrants, the trauma of survivors of wars. Culture moves across borders and nations, it can travel across time, it is starved, beaten down, censored, ignored, yet artists learn from each other, are inspired by each other to continue against the odds. Artists are rarely indifferent, these works are not indifferent, nor are they entertainment to send people back to sleep, they see the world from a different lens, truth is beautiful, made by the economic rejects, the witnesses without power, making art that wants to save not destroy.

SUE COE: War Copyright © 1991 Sue Coe Courtesy Galerie St. Etienne, New York

YOU ARE OUR HOPE!, Artpaper, 16.5 x 12 in, 2019 WITNESS US!, Artpaper, 16.5 x 12 in, 2019 REMEMBER HONG KONG!, Artpaper, 16.5 x 12 in, 2019

Chakming Wong / Kowloon, Hong Kong This is a very dangerous time for Hong Kong. It is happening, humanitarian disaster when Hong Kong people fighting for human rights and freedom since June, the extradition law protest. Hong Kong and China government are using some unethical ways to response to Hongkongers’ voice. They send police to shoot unarmed protesters, making terrorist attack at MTR train stations by gangs and even police, arresting innocent citizen and lynching them (even some citizen are suspected to be killed when there are corpse found in different places)...In spite of facing different unreasonable challenges, Hongkongers’ determination on freedom and justice would not be changed. We have created histories, 2 millions protesters come out on the street, crowdfunding 1 million US dollars in a half day several times for advertising on newspaper in different countries, demonstrations on every weekend continuously for more than three months‌Hongkongers are playing a losing game when safety hats, eye masks and masks from Hongkongers facing tear gas, rubber bullet, bean bag round from Police. Many of protesters are injured or arrested and the number is still increasing. But we still have hope because we believe the whole world is watching us. Please, everyone see us, see this series poster, we plead you to tell your friends what you know about Hong Kong, do not forget how we fight for freedom and justice. Please use your ways to stand with Hong Kong, to save us. Fight for freedom, Stand with Hong Kong!

Duat Vu / Springfield, MO The Communists propagandized it as the liberation of South Vietnam. But liberation quickly turned into oppression. My father went to re-education camp for three years with hard labor. Our family was blacklisted. We did not have rights to many things, like going to university. With no future, we escaped. We became refugees- “boat people”. Everything spiraled from the war and eventually led to our escape and migration to the west. The war horse is at the center of the picture. Look closely at the surrounding frame. They are house-boats linking to each other. These are the plights of Vietnamese boat-people. Sadly, this is now a reality for many others in the world.

“I am a first generation Vietnamese refugee. My family was part of the wave of “boat people” that escaped Vietnam after the war. The trip was a near-death experience, during which I was only a child. This work expresses my emotions of these events. It is also my reflection on the war I did not understand. Though they happened many years ago, looking at the world conflicts and the flight of refugees today, I am saddened that there are people who are suffering the hardship I went through.

It was a debilitating feeling waiting months in a refugees camp, sometimes years, for one’s future, one’s residency status. Where would one live? How would one cope not speaking the language, not knowing the culture? How would one work with a different job? Life is put on hold for uncertainties. Behind, there was a between the war-torn past. In front was a hopeful future. My family was stuck between two worlds. In the refugee camp, we anxiously dream of the unknown to come, and yet there was also a lingering sadness for what we have lost.”

Refugees: Limbo Land, Ink on paper, 12x18 in, 2008

Tian Jiang / Beijing, China Golden Shield Project series - Blocked Website is a sculptural video installation made with different type of laser paper and cardboard. This multi-thematic piece was also inspired by Golden Shield Project. This work deals with the issues that network security, information control and desires from three perspectives. They describe different intuitive feelings based on the role of people in different internet environments: insider, outsider and time. The visual illusion of laser paper can be reminiscent of the texture of the shiny sequins of a disc or the mosaic in the network, which creates a curious and mysterious visual effect. The “mystery” image from the banned website is flashed back to us on the surface of the paper shell, which is transformed into a form of distortion and illusion.

By projecting the contents of the banned website content video clips back onto their surfaces, this project invites viewers to think about the nature of the information marked as supposed to be discarded information from an outside of the “wall” perspective. The projection also combines the fluidity and illusion properties of the network with its symbolized logo and presents the process of Golden Shield Project through date. Under these circumstances, each representative symbol represents a different forbidden network, from which the color, shape and information data of the video clips are selected to form a digital information palette to construct the final projection ring.

Date in this project is not only emphasize the specific blocked signs commemoration, but the current time difference from the time node that is a process accumulation of things happening for a long time period. It explores an audio-visual mosaic of our culture, information technology and their survival in today’s world.

Golden Shield Project-Blocked Website, Video projection, laser paper, 03:50 min, 2019 (stills)

Department of Art & Design

Slocumb Galleries

The ETSU Department of Art & Design provides comprehensive training in the visual arts and art history.

Students develop problem solving skills, a strong work ethic, and an ability to communicate verbally and visually through their time with us. Alumni from our program are thriving in various careers in the arts. The faculty includes internationally exhibited artists, published authors, and a Guggenheim fellow. Within the College of Arts & Sciences, it is affiliated with the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts at ETSU, which sponsors an eclectic calendar of visiting artists, curators, art historians, and exhibitions on the ETSU campus each semester.

The ETSU Slocumb Galleries and Tipton Gallery under the Department of Art & Design promote the understanding, production, and appreciation of visual arts in support of the academic experience and the cultural development of surrounding communities. Named after Prof. Elizabeth Slocumb, an art teacher at ETSU (then, East TN Normal School in 1911) and first Chair of the Department of Art & Design. The galleries’ mission is to develop creative excellence, foster interdisciplinary collaborations, promote inclusivity and encourage critical thinking by providing access and platform for innovative ideas and diverse exhibitions.

The facilities are comprehensive, with materials and spaces for Graphic Design, Fibers, Painting, Printmaking, Ceramics, Drawing, Jewelry & Metals, Sculpture, Analog and Digital Photography, and Extended Media. We have two exhibition spaces, the Slocumb Galleries and a satellite gallery in downtown Johnson City, Tipton Gallery, that host exhibitions by students, visiting artists, and faculty.

The Department of Art & Design is accredited by NASAD, The National Association of Schools of Art and Design and is a member of CAA, the College Art Association; SECAC, Southeastern College Art Conference; ISC, the International Sculpture Center, and is a consortium member of SACI, Studio Art Centers International, based in Florence, Italy. Annual study abroad opportunities are available to all ETSU students; the Ceramics program offers an annual workshop in Spannochia, Italy.

The year-long calendar features Visiting Artists’ Exhibitions and Lecture series, curated/juried exhibitions, and MFA / BFA / BA student exhibitions. The Tipton Gallery, initially served as student exhibition space, organizes monthly art activities in coordination with Downtown JC First Fridays and Festivals. The exhibitions, art educational programming and community enggagement activities promote formally/artistically diverse, cuturally/socially relevant and thought provoking images that encourage critical discourse. The annual Positive/Negative National Juried Art Exhibition feature emerging, and nationally renowned US contemporary artists who employ diverse media and innovative techniques that contribute to the evolving definition and trends in American art.

Accomplished artists and renowned curators from prestigious institutions serve as Jurors, as it contributes to the academic and regional communities’ exposure and appreciation of current practices in contemporary art.

Degrees offered: Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) Studio Art Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) Studio Art Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) Graphic Design Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Art History Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Studio Art Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Studio Art *minor in Education Minors in Studio Art and Art History

Programming are supported by ETSU Department of Art & Design, the Honors College and ETSU Office of the President, in partnership with various academic units and funding support from the Student Activities Allocation Committee (SAAC) Funds, Student Government Association (SGA) B.U.C. Funds, MBMSOTA, Friends of Slocumb Galleries, the Arts Fund from East TN Foundation and Tennessee Arts Commission.

etsu.edu/cas/art

etsu.edu/cas/art/galleries

Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC)

Arts Fund for East Tennessee Foundation

The Tennessee Arts Commission was created in 1967 by the Tennessee General Assembly with the special mandate to stimulate and encourage the presentation of the visual, literary, music and performing arts and to encourage public interest in the cultural heritage of Tennessee.

The Arts Fund for East Tennessee, a field-of-interest fund of East Tennessee Foundation (ETF), serves as a source of funds to support excellence in the arts, expand access to the arts, and connect artists with each other. We are proud to partner with ETSU to support a series of exhibits that celebrate Black, Asian, and Hispanic Appalachian diversity. EFT is a 501(c)(3) public charity and community foundation created by and for the people of East Tennessee, where many donors join together to make the region they love a better place, today and for future generations.

The mission of the Tennessee Arts Commission is to cultivate the arts for the benefit of all Tennesseans and their communities. Through a variety of investments, the Commission encourages excellence in artistic expression through the state’s artists, arts organizations and arts activities. That commitment has expanded through the years to increase access and opportunities for all citizens to participate in the arts. The Tennessee Arts Commission builds better communities by: Investing in Tennessee’s nonprofit arts industry to enhance cultural life; serving citizens, artists and arts and cultural organizations; supporting arts education to increase student outcomes; and undertaking initiatives that address public needs through the arts tnartscommission.org/art-grants/

ETSU Radio, TV, Film Program

easttennesseefoundation.org

ETSU Student Activities Committee (SAAC)

Allocation

Student organizations and university departments which provide significant benefits to the entire student body are eligible to apply for funding to support student activities and services. h t t p s : / / w w w. e t s u . e d u / s t u d e n t s / c u r r e n t s t u d e n t s / studentactivityfunding.php

The Radio-TV-Film (formerly Broadcasting) unit at East Tennessee State University prepares students for careers in the radio, television and film industry, and provides a foundation for future growth and career development in research, programming, writing, directing, producing, managing and ownership of the nation’s electronic and entertainment media. In addition to the cultivation of artistic and practical skills, the program emphasizes history, law and ethics of electronic media and a broad knowledge of the social, economic, and cultural problems of the society it serves. Students receive handson experience by working in the department’s studentoperated radio and television stations, laboratories, and approved internships.

ETSU Women’s Studies Program

https://www.etsu.edu/cas/mcom/academics

https://www.etsu.edu/cas/litlang/wsp/

Women’s Studies at ETSU educates students to critically engage issues of gender and sexual equity in the Appalachian South, nationally, and globally.

Graduates from the program provide a pool of accomplished critical thinkers who are focused on civic engagement, social justice, and change and who can help to satisfy the continuing need to improve the lives, opportunities, and futures of women, LGBTQ individuals, and other marginalized persons or groups.

ETSU Department of Music

ETSU Language & Literature

The department offers Bachelors of Music degrees in music performance, music education, and jazz studies.

Some of the greatest teachers in our area are graduates of our program. Many of our performance majors have gone on to prestigious graduate programs and many have enjoyed professional careers. The faculty represent some of the nation’s most talented musicians, including internationally recognized performers, Grammy-winning artists, published composers, and award winning conductors. The department of music is proud to be AllSteinway school. All-Steinway schools demonstrate a full commitment to excellence by providing their students and faculties with the best instruments possible for the study of music. All of the pianos, from practice rooms to our recital hall, are designed by the great maker of pianos, Steinway and Sons. The ETSU Department of Music is a thriving community of talented individuals that offers the best possible preparation for a professional career in music! Please stop by for a visit, sit in on our rehearsals, and be a part of this great music program. GO BUCS!

At the center of our philosophy is the ancient credo: “know thyself.” The faculty and staff in the Literature & Language Department, work to educate the person and the passion through individual student care, a rich diversity of class options, and real world growth opportunities such as internships and study abroad. Classrooms are everywhere – on campus, abroad, in the workplace and online. Students succeed as they are taught transferable 21st Century skills like written and oral communication, complex reading methods, research techniques, longterm project organization, and cultural competence.

A nurturing environment is created that helps build passionate resilience in students as they find their unique critical and imaginative voices. Students discover what motivates and drives their dreams, as intense engagement is facilitated with the human wisdom of the past and the possibilities of each individual student’s future.

https://www.etsu.edu/cas/music/welcome.php

Carver Recreational Center Established in 1958, Carver Park is a 6-acre neighborhood park. Amenities include two basketball courts, fitness trail, multi-use court, pavilion, playground, and recreation center. The recreation center is equipped with a gymnasium, weight room, library, meeting space, teen room, community room, arts and crafts area, and kitchen.

A new recreation facility was dedicated in 2005.

Johnson City Parks and Recreation is committed to enhancing community well-being by providing responsive recreation opportunities, quality open space and preservation of natural habitats, and innovation in all aspects of our service operation. Increase your life’s value today, join a program, use a facility, experience nature, share a smile and enjoy a park! https://www.johnsoncitytn.org/residents/carver_ recreation_center.php

https://www.etsu.edu/cas/litlang/

Locate Arts At the center of our philosophy is the ancient credo: “know thyself.” To us, the faculty and staff in the Literature and Language Department, that means working to educate the person and the passion through individual student care, a rich diversity of class options, and real world growth opportunities such as internships and study abroad. Our classrooms are everywhere – on campus, abroad, in the workplace and online. Our students succeed because we teach transferable 21st Century skills like written and oral communication, complex reading methods, research techniques, long-term project organization, and cultural competence. We create a nurturing environment that helps build a passionate resilience in our students because they find their unique critical and imaginative voice. Our students discover what motivates and drives their dreams. We seek to facilitate intense engagement with the human wisdom of the past and the possibilities of each individual student’s future. https://locatearts.org/