Workshops

The Wick Poetry Center is now accepting poetry submissions as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the May 4 shootings. The poems should resonate with the themes of peace, conflict transformation, and student advocacy.

We are accepting submissions in three categories: youth, adult student, or adult non-student. Poet, songwriter, and novelist, Naomi Shihab Nye, will select one winner from each category who will receive $500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Kent State University to read their poems during the May 4 Music and Poetry Event on April 21.

Two poets will receive honorable mention prizes for $250 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Kent State to read their poems during the April 21 event. All winners will have their poems set to a musical composition by students in the Kent State University School of Music.

Participants can submit their poems online (starting September 1) at: wickpoetrycenter.submittable.com

The exhibition Culture/Counterculture looks at fashions of the 1960s and early 1970s with a particular focus on the generation gap during that period. The exhibition is scheduled to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Kent State’s shootings on May 4, 1970. Almost 50 years ago, the shootings of Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard brought to a head the cultural divides that had split the nation. There was a sharp contrast between supporters of the establishment and those opposed – the culture and the counterculture. These cleavages in society saw their clear expression in the fashions of the time. The exhibition draws from the rich holdings of the university’s historic costume collection, private and institutional lenders including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as archival material from the May 4 collection. Open: September 20, 2019 - September 6, 2020

Join KSU fashion school faculty members Kim Hahn, Trista Grieder, Melissa Campbell as well as students Alexandra Reich, Megan Rodgers, and Michelle Park who will share their inspiration and process behind their designs for the exhibition that marks the 50th commemoration of May 4th. The KSU School of Fashion and Merchandising is presenting designs by faculty and students that use fashion to create a dialogue about war and peace, political discourse, conflict resolution, and social justice today. Free for students, faculty, and staff or included with paid general admission.

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED. SEE NOTE ON HOME PAGE ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS(COVID-19),

Kent State Fashion School and The Design Innovation Initiative will host this first-ever international fashion + social justice student hackathon connected the IFFTI 2020 conference. One student will be nominated from each of the 60+ institutions that are members of IFFTI (www.iffti.org), who will then be welcomed to Kent State to work in teams with students from around the world to address social justice through the lens of fashion. The May 4 Visitor Center team will work with the faculty leadership from Design Innovation and the Fashion School to host the initial workshops for all of the students to become familiar with and inspired by the history of the May 4 shootings. They will then have 4 days to collectively develop compelling solutions to global social justice challenges. They will present their solutions as part of an expo event on Wednesday, March 25th. The goals of the Fashion + Social Justice Hackathon are to increase awareness of the ways that the concept of fashion can improve social justice issues.

This online social media project will recreate the 1969 – 1970 school year at Kent State University through the voices of Chic Canfora, Tim Moore, Jerry Lewis, Tom Grace, and Laura Davis. Each memory, from the mundane to the profound, will help paint a more personalized picture of the issues the divided campus and the events that brought everyone together. This program is similar to print versions of “look-backs” in history. Currently, the goal is to have at least three posts a week continuing to May 2020.

This project will reside on Twitter and Instagram under the account @KSUVoices1970 and will launch on September 29, 2019.

The School of Art presents an artist talk with visiting artist in print media and photography Salvador Jiménez-Flores on Friday, Dec. 6.  Jiménez-Flores is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Jalisco, México and Assistant Professor in ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The artist talk will take place in room 165 at the Center for the Visual Arts from 12-1 p.m.  Free and open to the public.

Since coming to the United States, Jiménez-Flores has contributed to the art scene by producing a mixture of socially conscious installation, public, and studio-based art. He has presented his work at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and Casa de la Cultura in Jalisco, México amongst others. Jiménez-Flores recently completed a two year-long artist residency at the Harvard Ceramics Program, Office of the Arts at Harvard University. Also he served as the Artist-In-Residence for the City of Boston. Jiménez-Flores is a recipient of the grants Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grants, The New England Foundation for the Arts, and was awarded the Kohler Arts Industry Residency for 2019. 

Artist Statement:

My art process is a time machine. I like to look back and forth and fly through borders. Dialogue and contradiction are essential to my work because they describe the complexity of our crossbred society. I am particularly interested in events that have shaped history in the Americas. The study of these formative events helps me to understand the present and gives me a glimpse of our society’s direction for the future.

I am a nomadic artist who journeys through the Americas, creating rasquache art* and high art, speaking Español, English and Spanglish. Occasionally, I feel I have a static sense of identity and sometimes I have an inventory of multiple identities. I fit in here and there but No soy ni de aquí ni de allá. I am one, in two worlds. 

Similarly, In my art practice I am interested in material experimentation, the understanding of their properties, the meaning they carry, and their histories. This allows me to play with different mediums such as drawing, print-making, ceramics, wood, metals, installation, and socially engaged art.

The content of my work is socio-political and is driven by my life experiences. In my work I explore the themes of colonization, migration (voluntary or involuntary), “the other,” stereotypes, cultural appropriation, and futurism. As an artist I feel I have the responsibility to address the issues that affect my community, create awareness, and propose actions through my art.

Through mainstream media and in most sci-fi content, the future is generally imagined as white. People of color have been erased from the future all together. My latest research is about exploring and developing a Rascuache-Futuristic aesthetic in my artwork, where I could articulate pre-Columbian, colonial, and post-colonial histories. I like to imagine and create a future where the protagonist looks like me, understands me, and others can relate as well.

* rasquache in Spanish means ‘leftover’ or ‘of no value.’ Rasquachismo or rasquache art describes an attitude or lifestyle of the underdog, which uses ‘assemblage’ or ‘found object’ techniques in sculpture and installation.

This program discusses how the shootings at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, and Jackson State, where students from both institutions were shot and killed, fit within the larger societal issues of race and violence against protestors at that time. This event also explores the establishment of Black United Students at Kent State University and their ongoing legacy of activism. This event will include a viewing of part of Fire in the Heartland and an open panel presentation and discussion about these connections. Presented by Dr. Robert Hamilton, IV, Dr. Amoaba Gooden, Dr. Leslie Heaphy, Professor Idris Syed, and Dr. Chris Post.

This Stark Campus presentation will detail the events leading up and surrounding May 4th as well as the reactions and responses. Time will also be spent talking about the importance and relevancy today. Presented by Dr. Leslie Heaphy, associate professor of history. Tickets not required.

This Stark Campus presentation, "How We Remember May 4th: A Geographic Approach to Looking Back and Moving Forward," will assess the commemorative history regarding the events surrounding May 4, 1970, at Kent State University, from a geographic perspective. Dr. Post, a cultural and historical geographer, will present on geographic thought and analysis, which includes seeking an understanding of memorial landscapes and how they came to be, particularly by assessing where they are located, who controls their production and when/how they are produced. Presented by Dr. Chris Post, associate professor of geography. Tickets not required.

The Laugh in Peace comedy tour is coming to Kent State University. This is sure to be a meaningful evening of interesting dialogue and connecting, featuring Muslim Comedian Gibran Saleem and Rabbi/Stand-up Comic Bob Alper. Hillel is participating in this event with the Muslim Student Association with important leadership from the School of Peace and Conflict Studies. This event marks the start of a dialogue series for the Jewish and Muslim students on campus and the culminating event for a monthly dialogue series for Temple Israel of Akron and the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent.