Public Events

adrienne maree brown and Krista Franklin share a love for Octavia E. Butler’s work. They recently collaborated on the The Octavia E. Butler Tarot Deck that is forthcoming with AK Press. Join them for an online conversation about Butler, tarot, and more, moderated by Julie E. Moody-Freeman.

adrienne maree brown is a writer, activist and facilitator, and author of Grievers (the first novella in a trilogy on the Black Dawn imprint); Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation; We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice; Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good; Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. She is the co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables and Emergent Strategy podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Detroit.

Krista Franklin is a writer, performer, and visual artist, the author of Too Much Midnight (Haymarket Books, 2020), the artist book Under the Knife (Candor Arts, 2018), and the chapbook Study of Love & Black Body (Willow Books, 2012). She is a recipient of the Helen and Tim Meier Foundation for the Arts Achievement Award and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Her visual art has been exhibited at DePaul Art Museum, Poetry Foundation, Konsthall C, Rootwork Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Studio Museum in Harlem, Chicago Cultural Center, National Museum of Mexican Art, and the set of 20th Century Fox’s Empire. She is published in Poetry, Black Camera, The Offing, Vinyl, and a number of anthologies and artist books.

Julie E. Moody-Freeman is the Director of the Center for Black Diaspora, Co-Director of the Social Transformation Research Collaborative, and an Associate Professor in the Department of African and Black Diaspora Studies at DePaul University. She is the co-editor of The Black Imagination, Science Fiction, and the Speculative and The Black Imagination: Science Fiction, Futurism, and the Speculative. Her work on African American Romance has appeared in Romance Fiction and American Culture, The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction, and the Journal for Popular Romance Studies. She is also the creator and host of the Black Romance Podcast, which is building an oral history on Black Romance writers.

This program is planned in conjunction with the exhibition Solo(s): Krista Franklin and supported by DePaul’s Women's Center, Center for Black Diaspora, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, and Department of History of Art and Architecture.

This is an online event. A Zoom link will be sent to all attendees following registration.

Image credit:
adrienne maree brown. Photo: Anjali Pinto
Krista Franklin. Photo: zakkiyyah nabeejah dumas o'neal

“On Collaboration” is in conjunction with Krista Franklin’s exhibition Solo(s) at DePaul Art Museum. Solo(s) draws on the artist’s vast range of materials and references, intersecting poetics, popular culture, and the dynamic histories of the African Diaspora. Often referring to the performance of a single musician, the exhibition’s title, “Solo(s)” is instead guided by the artist’s commitment to collaboration with fellow artists, writers, and musicians. Franklin is joined by artist Cauleen Smith, who has collaborated with Franklin on multiple occasions. Drawing from structuralism, third world cinema, and science fiction, Smith creates short films, feature films, installations, and performances. Smith and Franklin’s conversation will be moderated by the exhibition’s curator Ionit Behar, PhD.

Presented by DePaul Art Museum in partnership with and generously supported by EXPO CHICAGO and DePaul’s Center for Black Diaspora. This program is also presented in partnership with Pigment International as a part of Black Fine Art Month.

Image credit:
Cauleen Smith. Photo courtesy of the artist
Krista Franklin. Photo: zakkiyyah nabeejah dumas o'neal

Rest is Resistance & Solo(s): a conversation and joint book release celebration of Tricia Hersey's Rest Is Resistance and Krista Franklin's Solo(s). This event takes place at Haymarket House, located at 800 West Buena Avenue, Chicago, IL 60613.

From the founder and creator of The Nap Ministry, Rest Is Resistance is a battle cry, a guidebook, a map for a movement, and a field guide for the weary and hopeful. This book is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey’s lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action and manifesto for those who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.

Solo(s): Krista Franklin is a catalog of visual art and poetry by Chicago-based artist Krista Franklin. Published on the occasion of a 2022 exhibition at DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, Solo(s) brings together the visual, performance, and poetic practice of Chicago-based artist Krista Franklin in one volume. Part poetry collection and part artist book, Solo(s) features documentation of Franklin’s ongoing collage work, handmade paper, book and record covers, and installations as well as her poetry and other writing. Featuring a new essay by curator Ionit Behar, Solo(s) explores Franklin’s practice as it intersects with collaborators across the disciplines of music, literature, and visual art.

Speakers:
Tricia Hersey is a Chicago native who has called Georgia home for the last 12 years. She has over 20 years of experience as a multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian and community organizer. She is the founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that examines rest as a form of resistance and reparations by curating spaces for the community to rest via community rest activations, immersive workshops, performance art installations, and social media. Her research interests include Black liberation theology, womanism, somatics, and cultural trauma. She is the author of the upcoming book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto which will be published in October 2022. You can learn more about her work and the book at thenapministry.com

Krista Franklin is a writer, performer, and visual artist, the author Too Much Midnight (Haymarket Books, 2020), the artist book Under the Knife (Candor Arts, 2018), and the chapbook Study of Love & Black Body (Willow Books, 2012). She is a recipient of the Helen and Tim Meier Foundation for the Arts Achievement Award and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Her visual art has been exhibited at DePaul Art Museum, Poetry Foundation, Konsthall C, Rootwork Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Studio Museum in Harlem, Chicago Cultural Center, National Museum of Mexican Art, and the set of 20th Century Fox’s Empire. She is published in Poetry, Black Camera, The Offing, Vinyl, and a number of anthologies and artist books.

Coya Paz (moderator)(she/her) is the Artistic Director of Free Street Theater, and an Associate Professor in The Theatre School at DePaul University. She is the co-author, with Chloe Johnston, of Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater. Above all, she believes in the power of poetry and performance to build community towards social change.

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books, DePaul Art Museum and is supported by DePaul's Center for Black Diaspora.

Please join us Sunday, October 23 for an in-person tour of A Natural Turn: María Berrío, Joiri Minaya, Rosana Paulino and Kelly Sinnapah Mary with the exhibition’s curator, Ionit Behar, PhD. This exhibition features the works of four artists living in the Americas: María Berrío (Colombian, b. 1982), Joiri Minaya (Dominican-United Statesian, b. 1990), Rosana Paulino (Brazilian, b. 1967), and Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Indo-Guadeloupean, b. 1981). Pushing the boundaries of figuration, Berrío, Minaya, Paulino, and Sinnapah create bold and unforgettable images of truth and fiction within both personal and collective histories. Their works exist at the intersection of individual imagination and our shared natural, socio- and geopolitical landscapes––a unique space that mixes both beauty and violence at once. The tour will explore the artists’ surrealist approach to figuration as a means to interrogate structures of power and borders—those defined by geography, nationality, or language—to expand our understanding of the real and the imagined.

Image credit:
María Berrío, In a Time of Drought, 2016. Collage with Japanese paper and watercolor paint on canvas, 60 x 72 in. Courtesy of Carla Shen and Chris Schott

Join us for a poetry reading and conversation with Ada Limón, recently named the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States by the Librarian of Congress. Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her work has been supported most recently by a Guggenheim Fellowship. She grew up in Sonoma, California and now lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she writes, teaches remotely, and hosts the critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Her new book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, is out now from Milkweed Editions.

This program is in conjunction with the exhibition A Natural Turn: María Berrío, Joiri Minaya, Rosana Paulino and Kelly Sinnapah Mary. Sponsored by DePaul Art Museum, DePaul’s Center for Latino Research, Department of English, and Department of Latin American and Latino Studies.

Image credit: Courtesy of the author. Photo by Lucas Marquardt

In the first solo museum exhibition of her work, Solo(s): Krista Franklin draws on the artist’s vast range of materials and references, situated at the intersection of poetics, popular culture, and the dynamic histories of the African Diaspora. Often referring to the performance of a single musician, the exhibition’s title, ​Solo(s) is instead guided by the artist’s commitment to collaboration with fellow artists, writers, and musicians. Franklin appropriates text and images from vintage magazine articles and other printed matter that she collects. The very act of collaging—cutting, pasting, and juxtaposing—puts Franklin’s works in direct conversation with the materials of other photographers and writers, transporting her to the time of their original publication. Join Krista Franklin for a conversation in the galleries to learn more about her artistic practice and inspirations.

Image credit:
Krista Franklin, Blood Meridian (Or, DeVante at the Blood Meridian), 2019. Ink, chalk, charcoal, pencil, and collage on paper. Courtesy of the artist

Artist Joiri Minaya will present about her practice and current works in the exhibition A Natural Turn. Minaya is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work investigates the female body within constructions of identity, multicultural social spaces and hierarchies. Born in New York, she grew up in the Dominican Republic. Minaya has exhibited internationally across the Caribbean and the US. She is a grantee from the Nancy Graves Foundation, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Great prize and the Audience Award XXV Concurso de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes, the Exhibition Prize Centro de la Imagen (DR), and the Great Prize of the XXVII Biennial at the Museo de Arte Moderno (DR). She has participated in residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Guttenberg Arts, Smack Mellon, BronxArtSpace, Bronx Museum’s AIM Program, the NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists, Transmedia Lab at MA Scène Nationale, Red Bull House of Art Detroit, Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Artist, Socrates Sculpture Park, Art Omi and Vermont Studio Center. Minaya graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic (2009), the Altos de Chavón School of Design (2011) and Parsons the New School for Design (2013).

This program is supported by DePaul’s Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and the Center for Latino Research

Image credit:
Joiri Minaya. Photo by Joel Gaal, courtesy of Red Bull House of Art

Please join us for an online conversation with the artists of A Natural Turn. María Berrío (Colombian, b. 1982), Joiri Minaya (Dominican-United Statesian, b. 1990), Rosana Paulino (Brazilian, b. 1967), and Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Indo-Guadeloupean, b. 1981) will present their work in the exhibition and talk about their ​​cross-cultural connections and their understanding of the “natural” seen through the prism of their own history. Moderated by exhibition curator Ionit Behar, PhD, A Natural Turn pushes beyond borders—those defined by geography, nationality, or language—to expand our understanding of the real and the imagined.

Supported by DePaul’s Department of History of Art and Architecture.

Image credits:
María Berrío . Photo by Brad Ogbonna. Courtesy the artist and Kohn Gallery
Joiri Minaya. Photo by Joel Gaal, courtesy of Red Bull House of Art
Rosana Paulino. Photo by Isabella Matheus
Kelly Sinnapah Mary. Photo credit: Soul