This program is organized by the Surviving the Long Wars project. Registration will take place on the Surviving the Long Wars Eventbrite.
How do graphics, artworks, and compositions shared across movements highlight unlikely affinities and generate solidarity?
We'll explore this question and more in a tour and discussion with Surviving the Long Wars co-curator Aaron Hughes, Liberation Library co-founder Bettina Johnson, artist and researcher Nicole Marroquin, and Vietnam Veteran Against the War editor and member Barry Romo.
The program will begin with a tour of the Surviving the Long Wars: Residues and Rebellions exhibition and then proceed with a round table discussion on the history and feature of shared aesthetics in movement publications. Featured guests will share print examples during the discussion.
Speakers
Bettina Johnson is a lifelong resident of Chicago and an alum of both Chicago Public Schools and University of Illinois of Chicago. Bettina is a co-founder and current steering committee member of Liberation Library, an abolitionist books-to-incarcerated youth project that serves all five youth prisons and a growing number of youth detention centers in Illinois. Prior to joining the Social Justice Initiative, Bettina has worked in direct service provision at an emergency domestic violence shelter and worked in dental manufacturing as a document and data control specialist. In addition to serving on the steering committee for Liberation Library, Bettina is also a training lead and facilitator for other PIC (Prison Industrial Complex) abolitionist campaigns and organizations in Chicago.
Nicole Marroquin is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and teacher educator whose current research looks at Chicago school uprisings between 1967-74. She has recently been an artist in-residence at the Chicago Cultural Center, with the Propeller Fund at Mana Contemporary, at Watershed, Ragdale, ACRE and Oxbow. In 2017 she presented her art and research at the Hull House Museum, Northwestern University and the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2015, Marroquin was invited to present research at the University of Chicago in conjunction with the exhibit The City Lost and Found: Capturing New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, 1960–1980 and at the Art Institute of Chicago for the symposium The Wall of Respect and People’s Art Since 1967. Her essays are included in the Chicago Social Practice History Series, Revista Contratiempo and AREA Chicago Magazine, and her work is in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Mexican Art. In 2012 her work was featured in the 1ro Bienial Continental de Arte Indigenas Contemporaria at the Museo Nacional De Culturas Populares in Mexico City. She was a Joan Mitchell Fellow at the Center for Racial Justice Innovation in 2014, and she received the Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz Women of Excellence Award in 2011 for her work in her community. She received an MFA from the University of Michigan in 2008 and she is Associate Professor in the Department of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Enlisting in the Army fresh out of high school, First Lieutenant Barry Romo felt a strong sense of purpose when he headed to Vietnam to serve with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade. His experiences in combat quickly eroded this idealism. After a few weeks in the field, his focus had narrowed to getting his men home safely, rather than a commitment to any particular political agenda. Bearing witness to the atrocities of war led him to become a strident antiwar activist; upon returning from Vietnam, he participated in demonstrations against the war and then joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He was the longest serving as a National Coordinator for VVAW during which time he was the editor of VVAW newspapers the Winter Solder and The Veteran.
Past Public Programs
Check out video recordings of past Newberry public programs on our YouTube channel.
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