Kitchen Conversations: Food Stories for Change (with Seitu Jones and Jennifer Monson)
Virtual
VIDEO
Listen in online to one-on-one sharing of stories at kitchen tables in Champaign-Urbana and St. Paul. Artist Seitu Jones will visit virtually with Champaign-Urbana food and environmental justice activists (Dawn Blackman and Jennifer Monson) to discuss local issues related to access and affordability of food, as well as caring for the earth that nurtures us.
Seitu Jones is a George A. Miller Visiting Scholar for 2020-21. These virtual events launch a hybrid residency that will extend beyond the pandemic (hopefully) and include visits to the University of Illinois when it is safe to do so. In addition to the Center for Advanced Study/George A. Miller Committee, co-sponsors of these events include: Dance, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, College of Fine and Applied Arts, African American Studies, Center for Social and Behavioral Sciences, Extension, Human Development and Family Studies, Inner Voices Social Issues Theatre, Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute, Krannert Art Museum, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Landscape Architecture, Siebel Center for Design, Theatre, and Urban and Regional Planning.
Seitu Ken Jones | a George A. Miller Visiting Scholar (2020-21)
Seitu Jones is a Saint Paul (MN) based artist whose interdisciplinary practice considers the historical construct of race and the desire to restore our Beloved communities through food, conversation and beauty. His practice aspires to create environmental and public artwork that honors and inspires communities. Seitu Jones Studio engages, advises and produces work that advances food and environmental justice through the arts and public sphere.
Choreographer/improvisor Jennifer Monson (Director and Founder of iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance) uses choreographic practice as a means to discover connections between environmental, philosophical and aesthetic approaches to knowledge and understandings of our surroundings. She creates large-scale dance projects informed and inspired by phenomena of the natural and the built environment. Her projects include BIRD BRAIN (2000-2006), iMAP/Ridgewood Reservoir (2007), Mahomet Aquifer Project (2009), SIP(sustained immersive process)/watershed (2010), Live Dancing Archive Vol. I & II (2012 and 2014), in tow (2015) and bend the even (2018). Monson has been on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign since 2008 and was a Marsh Professor at Large at the University of Vermont (2010-16). She has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships including an Illinois Artist Fellowship 2019, The Doris Duke Impact Artist Award 2014, Guggenheim Fellowship 2004, Foundation for Contemporary Art Fellowship 1998, and multiple National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. iLAND published A Field Guide to iLANDing: scores for researching urban ecologies in 2017.