Spring 2022 Speakers' Series

Race & Social Justice in the Arts Speakers' Series

Melanie Cervantes
"Intersectional feminisms and the art of solidarity"
April 22, 2022, 12:00-1:00 PM (Zoom Registration required: click here)

Melanie Cervantes (Xicanx) has never lived far from the California Coast. Born in Harbor City, California and raised in a small city in the South Bay of Los Angeles Melanie now makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she creates visual art that is inspired by the people around her and her communities' desire for radical social transformation. Melanie's intention is to create a visual lexicon of resistance to multiple oppressions that will to inspire curiosity, raise consciousness and inspire solidarities among communities of struggle.

In 2007 she co-founded Dignidad Rebelde, a graphic arts collaboration that produces screen prints, political posters and multimedia projects that are grounded in Third World and indigenous movements that build people's power to transform the conditions of fragmentation, displacement and loss of culture that result from histories of colonialism, patriarchy, genocide, and exploitation. and Dignidad Rebelde's purpose is to illustrate stories of struggle, resistance and triumph into artwork that can be put back into the hands of the communities who inspire it.

Cervantes is the inaugural recipient of the two-year Art In Resistance Fellowship (2019-2020), as well as being recognized for Dignidad Rebelde's work receiving The Piri Thomas & Suzie Dodd Cultural Activist Award from Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (2016), Community Award, National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies (2015), the NALAC Fund for the Arts(2012) and the Exemplary Leadership award from San Francisco State University (2010). She holds a BA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Earlier this Semester:

Melissa Haviland: Flourish
"Interrogating cash crops, history of slavery, and current politics.” 
January 28, 2022

Melissa Haviland is a printmaker and professor of printmaking at Ohio University, and currently an artist in residence at the Lloyd Library in Cincinnati Ohio. Her latest art project “Flourish”, inspired by cash crops, weighs in on the loaded history of slavery and its current politics. Her artistic research uses domestic objects as a cultural lens to explore relationships, both personal and economic. Her research stems from her background as a seamstress and passion for fabric, especially cotton.

MAKING TODAY SERIES 2 featuring Scherezade García 

Artist's Talk, City Walks, and Printmaking Workshop
March 21 - 23, 2022
All Events are Free and Open to the Public (follow the link for details.)

Race & Social Justice in the Arts Speakers' Series

Melissa Haviland: Flourish
"Interrogating cash crops, history of slavery, and current politics.”
January 28, 2022, 12:00-1:00 PM

Melissa Haviland is a printmaker and professor of printmaking at Ohio University, and currently an artist in residence at the Lloyd Library in Cincinnati Ohio. Her latest art project “Flourish”, inspired by cash crops, weighs in on the loaded history of slavery and its current politics. Her artistic research uses domestic objects as a cultural lens to explore relationships, both personal and economic. Her research stems from her background as a seamstress and passion for fabric, especially cotton.

Melanie Cervantes
"Intersectional Feminisms and the Art of Solidarity"
April 22, 2022, 12:00-1:00 PM (Zoom Registration required: click here)

Melanie Cervantes (Xicanx) has never lived far from the California Coast. Born in Harbor City, California and raised in a small city in the South Bay of Los Angeles Melanie now makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area where she creates visual art that is inspired by the people around her and her communities' desire for radical social transformation. Melanie's intention is to create a visual lexicon of resistance to multiple oppressions that will to inspire curiosity, raise consciousness and inspire solidarities among communities of struggle.

In 2007 she co-founded Dignidad Rebelde, a graphic arts collaboration that produces screen prints, political posters and multimedia projects that are grounded in Third World and indigenous movements that build people's power to transform the conditions of fragmentation, displacement and loss of culture that result from histories of colonialism, patriarchy, genocide, and exploitation. and Dignidad Rebelde's purpose is to illustrate stories of struggle, resistance and triumph into artwork that can be put back into the hands of the communities who inspire it.

Cervantes is the inaugural recipient of the two-year Art In Resistance Fellowship (2019-2020), as well as being recognized for Dignidad Rebelde's work receiving The Piri Thomas & Suzie Dodd Cultural Activist Award from Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (2016), Community Award, National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies (2015), the NALAC Fund for the Arts(2012) and the Exemplary Leadership award from San Francisco State University (2010). She holds a BA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

2022 Texas Metals Symposium