The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise & Public Policy is pleased to announce Art as Protest, the culminating showcase of creative projects by this year’s cohort of Curb Scholars. On Monday, April 1, 7–9:30 pm. at the Sarratt Student Center Cinema and Gallery, Curb Scholars will present work spanning visual art, dance, film, fiber arts and creative writing. Each piece offers a unique interpretation of “art as protest”—the theme they have been investigating throughout this academic year.
The Curb Scholars Program is a selective scholarship and co-curricular enrichment program for undergraduate students who are committed to using the arts to effect social change and engage with their communities. Each Monday evening at the Curb Center, the scholars have been meeting to hear guest speakers—practicing local artists as well as those visiting Vanderbilt from across the U.S. and abroad—who have spoken about their work, facilitated creative activities and offered reflections on how protest surfaces in their artistic practice. Coupled with their own academic, creative and personal endeavors, these artists’ perspectives have helped Curb Scholars understand how art can be a tool for social change.
In October, performance artist Tim Miller, a lifelong advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, marriage equality and immigration reform, guided Curb Scholars through performance prompts that helped them express their viewpoints on important issues. Miller was a member of the NEA Four, a group of artists whose grants from the National Endowment for the Arts were rescinded in 1990 because of the controversial themes that surfaced in their work—namely, gay rights and gender-based violence. Miller has since devoted his artistic practice to advocating free expression and equal rights for all, and his work with the Curb Scholars encouraged them to merge movement and activism and to consider how the body can be an important tool for speaking out.
Just as forms of protest vary widely, so do artistic expressions of protest. Nashville-based poet Ciona Rouse, who visited the Curb Scholars in December, writes poetry that confronts injustice while finding delight in language, the natural world and the beauty that surrounds us. During her visit in November, Rouse led a poetry activity that showed the ability of language to harm and to heal: Curb Scholars were given quotes taken from recent news events that used disparaging language toward marginalized groups and were challenged to transform these phrases into dignifying declarations by adding, removing and reordering words. Inspired by the poetry of Ross Gay and The Ferguson Report: An Erasure by Nicole Sealey, Rouse’s session with the Curb Scholars—as well as her larger creative practice as a poet—showed that protest can be expressed through beauty and softness.
Additional visiting artists included LeXander Bryant, a Nashville-based photographer whose photographs of Florence Price: A Celebration were exhibited at the Curb Center this spring; Jessie Montgomery, a contemporary classical music composer; and Allison Orr, a dance practitioner and choreographer who choreographs the everyday movements of municipal workers into live performances through her Austin-based company Forklift Danceworks.
“At the Curb Center, we are interested in elevating the arts as a form of inquiry and a way of understanding the world around us,” said Leah Lowe, director of the Curb Center and professor of theatre. “Each of these artists has shared their work with the Curb Scholars and broadened their understanding of art-making as a method of investigation into the world around us.”
The Curb Scholars have created thought-provoking videos, visual art, poetry, photography and textile art, and many incorporate multiple genres of music and dance.
Molly Barth, associate director of the Curb Center, associate professor of flute at Blair and facilitator of the Curb Scholars program, said: “At each of our weekly meetings, the Curb Scholars deeply inspire me. They all have creative and thoughtful insights …, and they are already making inroads to creating a more just and holistic world. Please take this opportunity to meet the Curb Scholars at the April 1 event, which is free and open to the public.”
