Public Events

Join DePaul’s class “Contemporary Musical Improvisation” with School of Music Professor Jeff Kowalkowski in a musical performance in the galleries in response to the current exhibition Remaking the Exceptional.

Photo: Collin Pierce

As part of Abolitionist Company Class,“Assembly” is a performative exploration of collective organizing where a group of dancers explores the somatics of Black radical imaginative practice. Performers: Darling Shear, Raquel Monroe, Kierah King, Rahila Coats, Zachary Nicol, and Anna Martine Whitehead.

DePaul Art Museum welcomes Chicago based artists Dorothy Burge and Vincent Wade Robinson for a two-week residency. Artist Dorothy Burge is a fabric and multimedia artist and community activist who is inspired by history and current issues of social justice. She is one of the strongest voices in Chicago for police accountability and reparations for survivors of police torture. Artist Vincent Wade Robinson is a CPD survivor himself. He spent 31 years in state prison, teaching and working as an artist in a variety of different mediums and his passion for art kept him sane for more than three decades and continues to be his source of happiness today. Both artists will be working in DPAM’s event space throughout museum open hours, making artworks together while telling stories and engaging in conversation with museum visitors around their personal and community struggles, activism, and daily courage for navigating the impacts of our prison systems.

Top: Vincent Wade Robinson. Photo: Mark Poucher Bottom: Dorothy Burge. Photo: Joshua Clay Johnson

This program is made possible in part by a grant from Illinois Humanities through its Envisioning Justice initiative and and by DePaul University’s Vincentian Endowment Fund.

Join us for a social justice quilting workshop with artist Dorothy Burge. Using fabric, alphabet stencils, and fabric markers, Dorothy Burge will guide participants of the workshop through a series of steps that will allow them to create a social justice quilt patch that sends a positive message to survivors of police torture. The patches created can be donated to be included in an ongoing and interactive exhibition organized by the artist. In Dorothy Burge’s own words: “The purpose of the workshop is to provide a source of comfort to survivors; to honor their strength and to document the abuse. There are still many police torture survivors who are currently incarcerated and quilt making is a tool to continue to raise awareness and inspire action.”

Registration is required. Please email Ionit Behar at ibehar@depaul.edu no later than Monday, June 6, 2022 to sign up for this workshop.

Photo: Lakeside Quilting Guild

This program is made possible in part by a grant from Illinois Humanities through its Envisioning Justice initiative and and by DePaul University’s Vincentian Endowment Fund.

The State/Free project synthesizes a year-long series of class conversations between Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (PNAP) instructors and students. Together, they imagined what a “51st Free State” might look, sound, and move like, developing a dialogue across the prison wall, a dance, a sonic interpretation of space and time. Damon Locks and Anna Martine Whitehead will present one interpretation of their findings. PNAP is Aaron Barnes, Aaron Hughes, Allen "NY" Johnson, Antoine Ford, Antwan Tyler, Carlos Ayala, Carlvosier Smith, Damon Locks, Darrell Fair, Derrick Parks, Devon Terrell, Doris Sterling, Ike Easley, John Knight, Johnny Taylor, Luan Luna, Kevin Walker, Lamaine Jefferson, Anna Martine Whitehead, Rayon Sampson, Robert Curry, Rodney Love, Samuel Elam, and Sarah Ross.

This program is made possible in part by a grant from Illinois Humanities through its Envisioning Justice initiative and and by DePaul University’s Vincentian Endowment Fund.

Operating on a traditional company class model—where members of the ensemble share their rehearsal practice with a general public in an open format—Abolitionist Company Class reimagines the function of rehearsal and study as liberation practice. Curated by Anna Martine Whitehead, a series of in-person workshops will introduce participants to metered hymn singing for grieving and organizing with Ron Ragin. Ragin is an interdisciplinary performance artist that integrates sound, text, and movement. Their creative interests are rooted in music of the African Diaspora, improvisation, liberation aesthetics, and the development and maintenance of spiritual technologies. This workshop is specifically tailored to Black and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) participants. These workshops will take place outside for COVID safety purposes

Please register by emailing Ionit Behat at IBEHAR@depaul.edu with the subject line “Abolitionist Company Class.”