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A speaker is visiting campus this week who may be of great interest to us. Favianna Rodriguez is an artist and activist in Oakland — chiefly a visual artist, however the posted description of her talk asks questions that parallel our work in this course: Culture is power. Culture surrounds us all the time. It shapes our identity and forges our collective imagination. How does art inspire new ways of thinking? How can art support social justice movements? Her talk is at 2 p.m. Thursday at The Loft in the Price Center. There are snacks! Register to attend here — it's free — and I may see you there.
Participation! If you attend, tell us about it. How does her perspective align with ours? How does it differ — what can her art and activism add to our discussions?
4 Comments
4/19/2019 11:44:38 am
Yesterday I attended Art Power’s event at the loft featuring Favianna Rodriguez. She is a pioneer in arts and activism who is shattering stereotypes in gender, race, art, food, sexuality, politics, and mental health. Her AMAZING, abstract art is blowing up and with that recognition comes more tolerance and acceptance for her message. In spite of lack of tools from parents, Favianna told us how art was her way out. She talked about the power of storytelling through film, art, fashion, sports, music, food and music as a means to creating social movement. It was inspiring to hear about the history of activism the past decade and the increasing dialogue in the past couple of years with “Me too,” “Times Up,” and “Black Lives Matters,” movements. Although political change may happen at a slow rate, I was reminded by Favianna that culture has in-fact shifted, and there is no turning back. The power is in hidden in the story of the people. Creativity and culture is the most effective medium for bringing about awareness and social change. I would highly reccomend checking out her amazing artwork and content in her website link!
Ariel Pemberton
4/19/2019 11:46:23 am
https://www.favianna.com/
Ivana Cuk
4/19/2019 11:48:37 am
I attended Favianna's presentation yesterday and it was very interesting! Unfortunately, I had to leave early because I had class but I truly learned so much and felt very empowered and inspired by her! Favianna talked about how she started creating art in order to funnel and express her anger of the discrimination and abuse of brown and black Americans in Oakland and the United States overall. She is a big supporter and believer in equality in all aspects of life including eco-feminism, LGBTQIA+ and sexual freedom. She first became an activist when her high school campus was not allowing posters of Cesar Chavez to be put up and that's when she had enough and wanted to make a change. She discussed how culture shapes our imaginations and how it's the backing behind what's wrong economically and politically. She described how we can change culture through our storytelling, so we can show the problems in our environment. She also talked about how art allows us to see the bigger picture, can bring diverse thinkers and speakers together, as well as inspire and bring communities together. Something that really resonated with me from her talk was she explained how before Oakland became completely taken over by gentrification, when graffiti was everywhere in the 90s, there was one graffiti art that stated "Oakland is proud" and she said that she saw herself as a reflection of that and that's what helped shape her identity. Though Favianna has a passion for art and we are more focused on music, music and art still go hand-in-hand and I believe her art and activism definitely brings a lot to the table for us. She uses both the transmission and ritual view by getting her message across of equality for all and taking a stand against the white man in power through her art and brings together ritual in communities of people that also have a passion to art in whatever form that may be that maybe also want their voices to be heard and haven't known how to express it before. She demonstrates supplementation by taking ideas she has always had and the ideologies she values and putting it towards action which is allowing others to further hear her message and evoke the same response. Favianna demonstrates her protest through her art. Some final thoughts that I could leave us on are her statements of how "in the space of action we are about the (no)" and she asked us "what does my yes look like and how do I make that happen?" And another question of hers that I believe kind of ties into our class pretty well and life in general is "how do we show the world what we want and not just what we're against?"
Mariam Abdul Shakoor
5/3/2019 03:21:32 pm
Favianna Rodriguez had open my mind out on what really art is and how rich art is within a culture. Today's world of displaying power is through the displaying of unique arts. As I was listening to her, I was thinking, "WOW" I never knew why everyone in the world knows how to speak the English language and why? How films and especially Hollywood films are so popular across the world, and these films are in English, so in-order for individuals to get interested to speak they need to get attracted to the cultures. In the context of our class, another popular art that the USA displays is the Music Industry and how it is known world wide. Leave a Reply. |
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