Arts+Activism: The Power of Language

This program’s sub-theme, The Power of Words, is offered in conjunction with the current exhibition, Lesley Dill, Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me. For Dill, the “American” voice grew from early America’s obsessions with divinity and deviltry, on fears of the wilderness “out there” and the wilderness inside us. The extremes of both shaped history and gave pulse and heat to the words of activists like John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Mother Ann Lee, and Dred Scott. According to Dill, “These personas and their times stir something deep in my own family history and senses of self. I am compelled to this restrictive time period of limited access to a diversity of written word, and the bravery of these figures’ response.”

This program will focus on the work and words of Chris Hardy and Kay Jacoby, two local artists who use words within their creations for personal expression and in response to societal issues. Auburn University’s Dr. Joan Harrell, Journalism Lecturer and Diversity Officer for the College of Liberal  Arts will also offer her insights into Dill’s statement about the ways “the extremes of both shaped history and gave pulse and heat to the words of activists like John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Mother Ann Lee, and Dred Scott.” MMFA Director Angie Dodson will frame the conversation by placing these three artists’ work in the flow of other artists and artwork situated at the intersection of image and text.