Art and Social Justice on the Border: Detention, Creation, and Curation

Schedule

Tue Oct 26 2021 at 03:30 pm

Location

Latino Studies at UT | Austin, TX

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Join us on Tuesday, October 26th for a conversation between historian and curator Dr. Yolanda Leyva and artist Beili Liu to explore artistic and curatorial practice in a social justice context.

The panel will be moderated by Dr. Suzanne Seriff.
This event is co-sponsored with the Humanities Institute at UT Austin.

Meet the panelists:

Dr. Yolanda Leyva, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas-El Paso

Yolanda Chávez Leyva is a Chicana historian and writer who was born and raised on the border. She is the Director of the Institute of Oral History, Director of the Liberal Arts Honors Program and Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at El Paso. Professor Leyva specializes in border history, public history, and Chicana history. She is co-founder of Museo Urbano, a museum of the streets, that highlights fronterizo history by taking it where people are-- from museums to the actual streets of El Paso. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including the National Council on Public History "Best Public History Project Award" and the American Historical Association Herbert Feis Award that recognizes "distinguished contributions to public history."

In 2018, the United States government opened the Tornillo Detention Center to temporarily house children who either crossed the border into the USA alone or became separated from their parents or guardians during the crossing. Tornillo was one of several sites where unaccompanied children seeking asylum were held. Leyva was one of many who stood vigil at the camp. She learned that social studies teachers working with the children engaged them in a 4-day art workshop, during which they produced pieces based on the prompt to think of their home communities. Some of the pieces were displayed around the camp. When the camp was closed in 2019, Dr. Leyva was able to collect 30 of the pieces. They became the exhibit “Uncaged Art: Tornillo Children’s Detention Camp,” displayed in 2019 at UTEP's Centennial Museum and Chihuahuan Desert Gardens.


Beili Liu, Leslie Waggener Professor in the College of Fine Arts, University of Texas-Austin

Beili Liu is a visual artist who creates material-and-process-driven, site-responsive installations. She is the Leslie Waggener Professor in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas-Austin. Liu works with commonplace materials and elements such as thread, needle, scissors, feather, salt, wax, and cement to create works that resonate with the experience of migration and cultural memory. She has exhibited extensively across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Liu is the 2021-2022 Fulbright Arctic Chair. Among her many awards are a designation as the 2018 Texas State Artist in 3D by the Texas State Legislature and the Texas Commission on the Arts and a 2016 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant.

Beili Liu's 2021 installation and performance, "Each and Every," was created in response to the Family Separation Policy and the Zero Tolerance Policy carried out by ICE along the southern border of the United States between 2017 and 2021. The installation consists of hundreds of articles of used children's clothing, hardened by a coating of industrial cement, resting on the gallery floor. Thousands of strands of cement-coated white thread hang just above the clothing. Liu sits in the gallery space, meditatively mending brightly colored items of used clothing. Her continual presence is an act of protest as an artist, immigrant and mother.


Dr. Suzanne Serriff, Associate Professor of Instruction, Department of Anthropology and Director of the Social Justice Internship Program at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, University of Texas-Austin

Suzanne Seriff is an award-winning educator and innovator in the academic, museum, and community arts world. She is Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Social Justice Internship Program at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2010-2017, Seriff served as guest curator and later director of the Gallery of Conscience at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her interactive, community-engaged exhibitions have been recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Council for Museum Anthropology, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and the American Alliance for Museums.
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Where is it happening?

Latino Studies at UT, 210 W 24th St, Austin, TX 78712, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Latina\/o Studies at UT Austin

Host or Publisher Latina/o Studies at UT Austin

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