Eight College of Visual and Performing Arts students who are studying abroad at the Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Syracuse University Program in Florence will have the unique opportunity to work with Artist in Residence Carrie Mae Weems H’17 and attend an international arts conference in Venice in April.
Weems, an internationally renowned artist, will travel to Florence to deliver a public lecture, “Resistance as an Act of Love,” April 17. While there, she will review the work of students in the studio arts program.
Carrie Mae Weems (Photo by Jerry Klineberg)
The students will also attend the Black Portraitures conference in Venice April 20 and 21. Weems and Florence faculty member Jonathan Nelson will participate in the conference, which is co-sponsored by Syracuse University. Weems will be a panelist for the discussion “Black Realities through Digital Media,” and Nelson will serve on the “Radical Curricula” panel.
Students traveling to the conference include studio arts majors Anastasia Cardona, Sidney Hanson (a dual art history major in the College of Arts and Sciences) and Rumini Nguyen; computer art and animation major Mark Casadevall; and illustration majors Madeleine Herberger, Sarah Mednick, Sarah Skalski and Alissar Youssef.
Black Portraitures, now in its 14th year, is organized in concert with the Venice Biennale. This year’s theme “Shifting Paradigms,” brings together thought leaders in the arts from Africa and the African Diaspora. Founder Deborah Willis says the convening “will explore and expand narratives on memoir and memory studies; migration stories through family and politics; and reimagine ideas about art practices and the exhibition experience, all while considering new research practices.”
