Carrie Mae Weems, “Melding Art and Justice: Slides from ‘From Here I Saw What Happened and Cried’”
Thursday, 1 October 2015, 19:00 EST
Marran Theater
34 Mellen Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Moderated by Professors Martha McKenna, Nancy Beardall
Introduction by Stefanie Belnavis
Dance tribute by Ayako Takahashi

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Lesley University story on Carrie Mae Weems’s lecture:

Carrie Mae Weems Melds Art and Justice

Her audience gazed in rapt attention as artist Carrie Mae Weems showed slides from her exhibition, “From Here I Saw What Happened And I Cried,” a series of nineteenth-century photographs of slaves that she superimposed with text, a project commissioned by the Getty Museum.

“Making that work was very interesting,” she noted emphatically. (View the project here.)

Art doesn’t necessarily provide answers, but it allows the artist and viewer to ask certain kinds of questions and resolve “aspects and notions of the truth,” she said. The pursuit of the truth and exploration of power, racism, sexism and class are all part of the common thread that runs through Weems’s vast, acclaimed oeuvre.

“It’s all the same project really: The exploration of social justice,” she said.

The influential American artist drew a packed audience to Lesley’s Washburn Auditorium on Thursday evening, where she reflected on her 30-year career and her process of making art. She has exhibited in major museums around the world, and won a 2013 MacArthur “Genius” grant and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, among many other recognitions.

“I wake up very early in the morning, and I try to battle through a set of ideas that I think are all very much relational,” said Weems.

She spoke directly to students in the audience, including those studying at the Lesley University College of Art and Design, and called on young artists to push through the pain of the human experience and make work that is important and true to them.

“You are the ones who are coming behind me,” said Weems, “and you are the ones who will make the world a different place through the ways you express yourself.”

Weems said she is always reading, watching and observing the work of other artists, writers, musicians and performers, from Toni Morrison to Leo Tolstoy. She is influenced by her fellow artists who are also grappling with the “truth and messiness of our lives” and trying to clarify it.

“Keep reading,” she urged. “Spend time with the arts that matter to you.

“Nothing springs just solely from you,” she continued. “We are all informed, all responding to deep structures in the world around us and to other artists.”

Weems creates artwork that is textured and has “odor,” not pristine and sterile.

“Texture allows you to get close to meaning,” she explained. “Think of your work as archiving your ideas,” said Weems.

During her presentation, she highlighted photographs and images from many of her projects, including works that explore themes of history and racism. She explores an American society which is “in the midst of this profound change that I think in some instances is very scary,” asserting that we are dealing now with consequences of colonization, victimization, and the assassinations of the 1960s, including Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John and Robert Kennedy.

“And when I’m not so completely overwhelmed by it, I think about gardens,” she said with a laugh, shifting gears to some of her more lighthearted and fun projects, such as photographs for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for a book to celebrate its sculpture garden.

“I went to (MoMA’s) archive, dug around, and found photos taken in the garden much earlier, in the 60s and 70s. Then I invited a whole bunch of people to the gardens to restage things. It was hilarious,” she recalled with a laugh.

Lesley College of Art and Design Dean Richard Zauft praised Weems’s courage as an artist during his welcome address to the audience, and student Isabella Herrera, a senior photography major, hailed Weems as an inspiration to young artists during her introduction.

“She shows us as young artists that our work is yet capable of affecting social change, even in a seemingly stagnant and indifferent climate,” Herrera said.

“We are now living for the most part in a majority-minority state and certainly will be in next 15 years,” said Weems. “This is huge, really important. It’s going to change the face of the nation, and how we respond to is as sophisticated, intelligent people is going to matter a great deal.”

Weems’s visit as part of the Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series is supported by the Strauch-Mosse Endowed Fund for Visiting Artists, established in 2009 by Lesley University trustee Hans D. Strauch through a $1 million gift. The foundation and its associated lecture series reflect the university’s commitment to cultural and artistic literacy, a bedrock of a democratic society.

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Lesley University press release summary of the event:

Judith Jamison: ‘The arts are key to changing people’s minds’

Alvin Ailey Dance Theater legend championed the power of the arts during Lesley’s Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Friday, March 07, 2014

The first time she performed Alvin Ailey’s signature solo “Cry,” Judith Jamison didn’t get a run-through and had to abandon a rigid and uncomfortable costume at the last minute to be sewn into a makeshift ensemble.

By the third movement of the piece — which Ailey had created as a birthday present for his mother and an homage to all Black women — Jamison couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. She credits her faith with enabling her body to finish the grueling performance.

“It was a shock to me and to Alvin when the curtain went down and there was this roar coming from the audience,” she recalled, speaking of a famed 20-minute ovation she received.

Since captivating the world with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the 1960s and 1970s, Judith Jamison has continuously expressed the African-American spirit and human experience in ways that have shaped the modern dance world and beyond. The iconic dancer and choreographer, whose awards include a Kennedy Center Honor and a National Medal of Arts, visited Lesley on Wednesday evening and drew a packed house in Washburn Auditorium as she shared her wisdom, candor and accomplishments with an awestruck audience.

Jamison’s messages resonated deeply with the Lesley community as she spoke about the importance of the arts in education, community outreach, and the need to be inspired and mentored.

“The arts are key to changing people’s minds,” she said. Jamison believes dance can speak louder than words as a means of peacemaking and cultural diplomacy. She recalled performing in war zones, during the Cold War, in Iran, and at the end of the Six-Day War in Israel. “Dance, because (you) don’t have to say anything,” explained. “It changes minds.”

She urged the audience to know what came before and honor the past in order to live life well and create a brighter future. She paid tribute to many people of color who influenced her, including performers Carmen De Lavallade, Geoffrey Holder, Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham and many others.

“You need mentors,” said Jamison, artistic director emerita of Alvin Ailey. “You have to have them all your life. Even at my age I still have mentors.”

Her visit to Lesley was made possible by the Strauch-Mosse Visiting Artist Lecture Series, which was established in 2009 through a $1 million gift from Hans Strauch, vice chair of the Lesley Board of Trustees. Through the series, Lesley welcomes luminaries to campus twice annually to further the university’s mission of promoting cultural and artistic literacy and to celebrate the arts as the foundation of all learning.

The conversation was facilitated by professors Martha McKenna, director of Lesley’s Creativity Commons, and Nancy Beardall, coordinator of Lesley’s Dance/Movement Therapy program, who thanked Jamison for sharing her “dancing spirit and light throughout the world” for many decades.

During her talk, Jamison conveyed the drive and resilience it took to accomplish years of demanding and groundbreaking performances, and she modestly reflected that her unparalleled career is “nothing short of a miracle.”

“The first thing that has to happen is love: an overwhelming love for what you’re doing,” she advised. She described the reciprocal love between the performer and the audience. “It becomes a spiritual reciprocity. You get so much love back. …Dance is always about, Who are you giving it to? Who are you servicing? It’s so important.”

Jamison also spoke about the importance of community service and outreach, something the Alvin Ailey Company exemplifies in schools and camps around the country, she said.

“Before outreach became a buzzword, we were doing it. We were already in the communities we served. We were up the next morning — after a late-night performance — at 5, 6 or 7 to get into the schools or to do workshops at community centers, to talk with children to spread the word of dance,” she recalled.

At the start of her talk, Jamison was welcomed by Lesley dance therapy graduate student Stefanie Belnavis, who is from Jamaica and recalled the hope and inspiration evoked in her as a girl when she saw a striking photograph of Judith Jamison from “Cry,” draped in white and reaching up to the heavens. Jamison drew a standing ovation from the audience, and at the conclusion of the program, Ayako Takahashi, also a dance therapy student, performed a riveting dance tribute to Jamison.

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Cambridge Day article on Carrie Mae Weems lecture, reposted with permission from Marc Levy: