Join us for a panel discussion featuring recently selected Arts + Public Life / Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC) Artists-in-Residence Lauren Ash, Stephen Flemister, and Yaw Agyeman (YAW).

The discussion will create an opportunity for each artist to introduce themselves and their practices, while also creating space for each to amplify their ambition for their time in residence at the University of Chicago, on the Arts Block, and in Chicago’s Washington Park community.

The conversation will be moderated by Eve Ewing, Provost’s Postdoctoral School at the School of Social Service Administration and CSRPC Affiliate.

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About the Artists:

Lauren Ash
Lauren Ash is the Founder and Creative Director of Black Girl In Om, a lifestyle brand focused on cultivating holistic wellness, inner beauty, and self empowerment for women of color. She is also a certified yoga instructor, wellness curator, and creative writer. She is passionate about building authentic and meaningful community amongst women of color, people of color more broadly, and creatives and inspiring all people to live by their intentions and chase after their curiosities with enthusiasm, faith, and vision.

Ash’s work has been published in Design*Sponge, Blavity, and she has recently been featured in Nylon, The Cut, Teen Vogue, New York Magazine, and Elle.com. She is currently loving all things sports luxe, red wine, travel, and the monthly black joy centered day party she co-founded: Party Noire.
Website: laurenash.co

Stephen Flemister
Stephen Flemister (born in Chicago, IL, 1977) is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, printmedia and new media, with practices invested in modes of portraiture, influences of digital culture and their common forms of application. Through objects, installations, and experimental studies, Flemister explores methods of visibility and fabricated realities, among social systems. Flemister received his BA in Interactive Arts and Media from Columbia College Chicago and his MFA in the Low Residency Program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His works have been shown at Hyde Park Art Center, Columbia College, South Side Community Art Center, and Arts Incubator with public installations and performance throughout Chicago.
Website: stephenflemister.com

YAW
YAW (Yaw Agyeman) has performed on both the theatrical and musical stage. He has toured in the play Red, Black and Green: a blues (MAPP) and performed in the world premiere of the musical, Mister Chickee’s Funny Money (Chicago Children’s Theater). The play features music from the Motown great, Lamont Dozier. He has been featured on VH1’s “Soul Cities,” a show produced by Nelson George that showcases singers in cities all over the country, as well as on the Africa Channel’s, “Soundtracks at Red Kiva,” a program that focuses on artists of African descent. Currently, he is a member of the artistic collaboration, “Black Monks of Mississippi,” headed by the dynamic and prolific, Theaster Gates.

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About the Moderator:

Eve Louise Ewing
Eve Louise Ewing is a sociologist of education whose research is focused on racism, social inequality, and urban policy, and the impact of these forces on American public schools and the lives of young people. She is a Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago; in 2018, she will begin as Assistant Professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. Currently, she is developing a book manuscript based on her dissertation, “Shuttered Schools in the Black Metropolis: Race, History, and Discourse on Chicago’s South Side,” explores these topics in the context of the 2013 public school closures in Chicago, and the relationship between such closures and the structural history of race and racism in Chicago’s Bronzeville community.

Eve is also an essayist and poet. Her work has been published in many venues, including Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, Union Station, and the anthology The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop.
Website: eveewing.com

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About the Residency
The ten-month Artist-in-Residence program for individual artists places specific emphasis on those whose work critically engages issues of race and ethnicity and works to advance their artistic ambitions and opportunities. During this program, resident artists have access to rehearsal, performance, and exhibition space at or near the Arts Incubator in Washington Park, as well as access to the academic and research resources of the University.

Artists selected for this program are at all stages in their careers and work in various media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, new media, installation, performance, and music. Residents selected for the program will explore ways in which their work can impact campus, community, and city alike.

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This venue is physically accessible and has a gender-neutral restroom. Please contact the CSRPC at 773.702.8063 with any questions or accommodation requests.

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The Artists-in-Residence program, managed by Arts + Public Life and the CSRPC, is supported in part by a grant from The Joyce Foundation. For more information, please contact Arts + Public Life at artsandpubliclife@uchicago.edu.

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Tags: Arts + Public Life, Center for the Study of Race Politics and Culture, Chicago, Eve Ewing, Hyde Park, Lauren Ash, stephen flemister, Yaw, Yaw Agyeman