Clark Art to Host Conversation on Feminism, Black History and Identity

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Thursday, Oct. 27, at 5 p.m., Tsedaye Makonnen, the Futures Fellow in the Clark Art Institute’s Research and Academic Program, joins Nikki A. Greene, associate professor of art at Wellesley College, in a conversation examining feminism and the transhistorical forced migration of Black communities across the globe.

The conversation explores Makonnen’s studio, curatorial, and research-based practice, and how it threads together her identity as a daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, a Black American woman, a doula, and a mother. This lecture will be held in the Clark’s Conforti Pavilion and is free and open to the public. A reception precedes the program at 4:30 p.m.

Tsedaye Makonnen’s studio practice primarily focuses on feminism and migration. She intends to create a global spiritual network that recalibrates the world’s energy towards something positive. Makonnen is the current recipient of a permanent large-scale public art commission for Providence, Rhode Island. In 2019, she was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, and in 2021, her light sculptures were acquired by the Smithsonian for its permanent collection.

Most recently, she performed at the 2022 Venice Biennale for Simone Leigh’s Loophole Retreat. At the Clark, she works on a project that explores how performance art can challenge whiteness, colonialism, and the effects of systemic forms of oppression on migration. Makonnen will exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2023.

The event is free and no registration is required. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events. A recorded video of this lecture releases on the Clark’s YouTube channel on Nov. 3.

The next Research and Academic Program lecture is Zeynep Çelik Alexander’s “Imperial Data: An Architectural History” on Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 5:30 p.m.


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Williams College Addressing New Bias Incidents

iBerkshires.com Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Saying the college has to “resist hatred in all its forms,” the president of Williams Monday informed the campus community of recent bias incidents at the school.
 
Maud Mandel sent a college-wide email to provide details on the incidents, talk about how affected students are being supported and point out that the college’s code of conduct will be brought to bear on any members of the student body found to be responsible.
 
The recent incidents appear to be targeting both Jewish and Black students at the school.
 
“In one case, a table painted with the U.S. and Israeli flags was placed outside on the Frosh Quad,” Mandel said, referring to an area bounded by two residence halls that abut Park Street . “Over several days the table was repeatedly flipped over and damaged. It was eventually defaced with graffiti that read, ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘I love Hamas,’ ‘F— Zionists,’ ‘Colonizers,’ ‘F— AmeriKKKa’ and ‘Don't claim rednecks.’ “
 
The Star of David was crossed out on an Israeli flag at the table, and the table itself was repeatedly damaged by vandals, Mandel wrote.
 
Her email also referenced a series of reports earlier this semester involving the harassment of Black students on Main Street (Route 2), which runs through the middle of campus.
 
“[On] several occasions this semester, people in cars have yelled the N-word and other racial slurs at Black and other students crossing Route 2,” Mandel wrote. “During one of those incidents a person in the car also threw an empty plastic bottle at the students. Route 2, the main public thoroughfare through campus, has been a site of similar incidents in past years.”
 
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