This event consisted of a reunification and conversation among some of the artists/scholars who contributed to the Justice, Healing, and Repair exhibit held previously. Said exhibit was born from the community cultivated over the course of a semester in Visual Anthropology (Spring 2024) and this event represents one way their work, ideas, conversations, and experiences live on. The students from the course collaborated on Dimensions: An Ephemeral Manifesto on Creativity, a piece that celebrates creative works in academic spaces and pushes against traditions and forms of violence in academia. Dr. Dada Docot opened the event speaking to this theme through the lens of agitation and her collegiate experience. When processing black and white photographs, agitation enriches the texture of the resulting image. Similarly, agitation of and in academic spaces through art, creativity, and joy can add texture to anthropology and beyond. With this frame in mind, the artists shared their works with the audience and the different aspects, or dimensions, of creative scholarship their work addressed (see the archive of Justice, Healing, and Repair for more information including artist statements and the works themselves). 

The conversational Q&A that followed was largely centered on the manifesto. The artists detailed how they initially intended to combine their personal manifestos surrounding their art, finding that they could not, and did not want to, unify their perspectives. As marginalized and minority scholars, it was important to them to hold space for each other and their unique experiences, looking to create something holistic and nuanced. The theme of dimensions allowed each person to detail their ideas and experiences while being in conversation with each other as each dimension reveals part of the larger discussion of art in academia. The artists further explain that this piece could evolve over time and they intentionally left some things open-ended to allow space for it to grow with them and be re-edited. With intentions to publish their manifesto, the artists reflected on what that process has entailed and what it means for them. This involved conversation on how to maintain equity when publishing collaboratively, divisions of labor, what it means to different people to write things, and the significance of the order of names on published works.

Thank you to the artists who joined us for this discussion, as well as those who were not able to attend but were nonetheless an integral part of this conversation.

 -Madeline Kay