Category: Blog Post (Page 2 of 2)

In 2018, FRANK Gallery moved from its original location on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill to a suite in the University Place Mall, just up the road. As FRANK Board Chair Sasha Bakaric points out, many people were initially “skeptical about showing fine art in such a commercial space, right between a gym and a fast food place.” But, as it turns out, the change in venue has been overwhelmingly positive. One of the biggest differences, according to Bakaric and other artists who work and volunteer at the gallery, is that in its current mall location, FRANK no longer has any doors—its brightly lit, highly curated interior is thrown open for all to ogle on their way to Planet Fitness, or as they amble past with a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A. Integrated into a more trafficked, more accessible environment, FRANK Gallery is even better able to fulfill one of the central aspects of its mandate: to serve as an anchor for public arts in the Chapel Hill community. 

Bakaric, a ceramics artist who grew up in Croatia, told me in a conversation at the gallery that FRANK is a unique venture: unlike most artists’ collectives, the organization was formed in 2010 with a strong public-facing mission. Some co-ops are more impersonal, granting their artists a few feet of wall-space in exchange for the usual fee—a practice that can result in an insular, jumbled assortment in a disconnected gallery. At FRANK, by contrast, artists who participate in the co-op not only volunteer their time to help facilitate some of the organization’s many community events, but also regularly rotate out of the line-up, in order to facilitate a more cohesive, thoughtfully planned exhibition space.

FRANK gallery benefits two publics. The first is a local community, made up of Orange County residents. The second, importantly, is a strong community of county and regional artists. Serving both, this welcoming gallery makes fine art accessible to all while fostering a vibrant local arts scene. 

For people who are not familiar with FRANK Gallery, can you talk about its role within the community? Can you describe some of FRANK’s community-oriented efforts? What is your specific role in these efforts?

FRANK was established as an artists’ collective almost ten years ago on Franklin Street with a mission to enrich downtown Chapel Hill through the arts. Since that time, we have moved to University Place and changed our mission to better reflect the reality of what we are doing. Our mission now: FRANK is a contemporary fine arts gallery, featuring work by local artists and enriching our community through exhibitions, events, and arts education. Sadly, there are very few exhibiting spaces in our community. Our visitors, both local as well as from out-of-town, very much appreciate that we show the work of artists from Orange County and surrounding areas. In addition to exhibiting work of our members and guest artists, we serve the community through various events like artists’ talks, salons, and educational workshops. We recently started “Coffee and donuts with FRANK” every first Saturday of the month, from 10-11 am. Our estimate is that about 13,000 people visited the gallery in 2018, both to see work exhibited in the gallery and to attend various events.

A very important segment of our activities is community outreach. One very long term project that we are very proud of is our work with Karen students. Orange County is home to a rather large Karen (Burmese) refugee community. FRANK’s Karen Youth Art group has been active since 2013. Several FRANK artists meet every Sunday morning teaching the young students different art techniques, taking them on educational field trips. In 2016 students wrote, illustrated and published a children’s book telling a story of their farming traditions. 

FRANK has been given access to an additional space in the mall which we turned into a community gallery where we host guest professional artists groups and other arts-related exhibitions. In 2018-19 the exhibits in the Outreach Program/Gallery included Durham Academy’s “Heroes Book”; FRANK in FOCUS – CLICK! Photography Festival, in collaboration with Duke Center for Documentary Studies; Nancy Smith’s “Women Speak”; the Chapel Hill PTA Reflections Show; the Karen Youth Art Group Show and the Orange County Artists Guild (OCAG) Studio Tour Showcase Exhibit, their Holiday Show and their Spring Show. 

FRANK is an artists’ collective. We currently have 22 member artists who are in charge of curating and hanging shows, inviting guest artists, organizing and hosting events and numerous other tasks of running a non-profit organization. FRANK has an active Board that consists of community business people and experts in various areas. I have been involved as a FRANK member artist since we first opened in 2010. In addition to my engagement as a member artist, I am currently the chair of the Board which means I am involved in almost every aspect of the gallery.

Why is it important to have artists represented in a community of non-artists? How do the arts contribute to the “public good”? More specifically, how do the visiting artists or artists on display in FRANK enrich our local public? 

Art is a crucial segment of human existence and experience. Artists are fully aware of this, but it is harder to prove and persuade the broader public why and how important it is for everyone to have access to the arts. Art broadens our views of the world and teaches us compassion and understanding. It is especially important to bring arts to a population that doesn’t have access to it through their families or communities. When FRANK moved to the University Place Mall, many were skeptical about showing fine art in such a commercial space, right between a gym and a fast food place. It turns out that we are now in a perfect location where people who would never go to a gallery are walking in, engaging in conversations about art or listening to an artist talk about their work. FRANK also exhibits work of high-end craft. In today’s highly automated, industrial world, hand-made, unique objects are getting more attention and recognition. 

What is one thing you wish that more people understood about helping direct, organize, and curate a gallery?

There is a general misconception that artists are not organized or incapable of running a business. I have worked in finance and management and it is my experience that most artists are extremely hard-working, more organized, and easier to work with than many in corporate environments. I wish there was more appreciation and recognition for the arts in general. It’s a legitimate business that brings tax dollars to our community and is of value to the broader public. 

In your own artistic practice, you are inspired by images of microorganisms like bacteria and viruses. These are “communicable” organisms; they pass from person to person. Your artist’s statement says you dwell on these forms because you are interested in “questioning our relationship with the world inside us,” but have you also considered the social, interpersonal, or communicable dimensions of microorganic life? Do questions of human interrelation and communication enter into your artistic practice?

My relationship with the microscopic world is not something that I intentionally created. It started with a casual comment that the images that I was putting on my pieces looked like amebae. That prompted me to start looking into that world of microscopic organisms and cell structures. I was fascinated by the beauty of the images but also intrigued by dual emotions that most of us have when we see an image of a deadly but beautiful virus. When my mother was diagnosed with the same type of cancer that took my father, putting cells on my work got an extra meaning. In a way, I was trying to find peace with a cruel and beautiful nature that took both my parents. I am not necessarily thinking about conscious human interrelation that leads to the spread of viruses or bacteria. I am more interested in the interrelation of humans and the world that we don’t see, that we are not even aware of, or maybe in all the bacteria and viruses that live in and on us. We carry and support this often visually beautiful and sometimes deadly life. 

To learn more about FRANK gallery and its public events, including artists’ talks, workshops, and educational series, visit https://www.frankisart.com/. Bakaric’s art can be found online at https://www.sashaceramics.com. 

Now Associate Director of UNC-CH’s Correctional Education Program at the Friday Center, Raphael Ginsberg’s decision to start teaching in local prisons as a graduate student stems from an example set by his parents, who were both public defenders. In a conversation with me over coffee, Raphael recounted how at a young age he learned that his father once had a good time teaching in a prison during law school—an idea apparently impressive enough to Raphael that it continued to “jangle around” in his head as a possibility for making a positive impact. Though his mother died when he was just a kid, Raphael speculates that seeing recorded footage of her arguing on behalf of a defendant in a trial on local TV also instilled in him a service-minded sense of the importance of advocating for prisoners, who need as much help getting an education as they need legal assistance. Jokingly referring to himself as a “true believer” (a derogatory term sometimes used by prosecutors to refer to people who blindly believe in a defendant’s cause), Raphael holds firmly that advocacy is crucial part of making the criminal justice system more equitable. 

Raphael is a committed community organizer. For him, the most rewarding and important part of teaching in prisons is that the classroom becomes a space where special and much-needed bonds can form between students. Community, Raphael pointed out to me, is actively annihilated in the prison system. Everything is transient. A prisoner’s human relationships—all of them—are temporary, even as they are, at the same time, all too intimately associated with fear and hostility. In contrast, the classroom becomes a “little world” in which wisdom and learning are shared between both teacher and students.

How did you become involved with UNC’s Correctional Education Program? You have a PhD in Communication Studies from UNC. Can you describe the evolving relationship between your academic work and your current role as Associate Director for Corrections?

Halfway through my PhD work I contacted the North Carolina Department of Public Safety asking about teaching in prison. I had no specific idea of what that teaching would look like and thought it would be something I would set up on my own, but I got an email back saying “UNC-CH has a prison education program. Go talk to Brick Oettinger at The Friday Center.” It was a great stroke of luck that I ended up at one of the few schools that had such a program. 

Until recently there was no relationship between my work with Correctional Education and my academic work. The articles I’ve written and my dissertation had nothing to do with prison education, and I didn’t bring any of that work into the prison classroom. In the last few years I began to think and write about prison pedagogy, including a chapter in the book Critical Perspectives on Teaching in Prison, a chapter in which some of the ways I’ve framed things in my academic work were incorporated into writing about prison teaching.

That chapter involved my experience as a teacher in prison, but my work as Associate Director has nothing to do with any academic work. But, surely, the humanities, which I completely took for granted in my education, have been very important in me understanding the world and developing rewarding ways to engage with it. People in prison do not have access to any humanities education in prison, and may never have had such access. Of course people in prison are missing out on all of the joy and power it can bring, and the rest of us are missing out on what they themselves can become and create with the humanities.  

As I understand it, the Correctional Education Program offers its students all kinds of university-accredited coursework, from a variety of disciplines. That said, coming from a background in Communication Studies, how have you been able to use training in the humanities to facilitate the program?

I have ensured that the humanities is a key component of our curriculum. We bring in a cycle of four courses, one of which is an Arts and Humanities course, including Music History, Art History, and English Literature. These prove to be the key courses in our curriculum, where textual analytical skills are developed, writing approaches are refined, and students experience the joy of the communal experience of creative expression. 

What is one thing you wish that more people understood about correctional education?

First, I wish people knew that teaching in prison is safe and not scary. Second, I wish people could appreciate the diversity of students in a prison classroom, diversity of every possible type, geographic, racial, political, age, and so on. Accordingly, in the prison classroom there is a diversity in linguistic styles, investments in the importance and purpose of education, and areas of expertise. Finally, I wish people could appreciate the joy in being a part of the development of a learning community, especially in a context where community of any kind is rare and forever-fraught. Yes, students earn credits and gain skills, but more than anything else it is the experience of being and learning with others that shapes the culture of each class.   

Are there other public humanists whom you admire? In what ways do they inspire you, or influence how you practice the humanities? 

The editors of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons work closely with writers in prison on scholarly work; editors use their research and writing skills to improve the quality of the scholarship in a series of editorial revisions. The writers’ ideas and analysis remain central but are improved through the application of scholarly practices with which the writers are otherwise unfamiliar.

Raphael informs me that he and his team and the Friday Center are always looking for passionate teachers to join their team. Professors and graduate students who are interested in teaching in a North Carolina correctional facility should contact Raphael Ginsberg at trapido@email.unc.edu.

Humanities for the Public Good Initiative Communications Specialists

APPLY HERE

The Humanities for the Public Good Initiative (HPG) implements mini-granting, curricular, and fellowship programs to enhance the culture of humanities engagement on UNC’s campus. HPG seeks two graduate students for communications assistance. Position pays $25/hour; the hours will vary somewhatbut will likely average ~5/week.

The HPG newsletter is run on Campaign Monitor. Familiarity with it, as well as WordPress and Google spreadsheets, or capacity to quickly become familiar, is helpful. Successful applicants will have a once-weekly meeting with HPG Initiative director; otherwise, hours and work locations are flexible.

The work:

1. Compile, write, and format monthly newsletter from template with materials supplied by HPG Initiative Director, including maintainenance newsletter subscription lists
2. Devise standards and solicit entries for HPG blog
3. Keep HPG website up-to-date

The right candidate(s) will be reliable, have great diction and a strong sense of the interesting, and an interest in (and interest in deepening understanding of) the public humanities. To apply, please use this web form to upload a short cover letter (no more than one page) and C.V. or resume.

See the registration page & form to propose breakout sessions for Saturday – forms no longer active

The Sympoisum

The Humanities for the Public Good Initiative brought together students, artists, scholars, cultural practitioners, and people interested in using humanistic knowledge to forward publicly engaged scholarship, for two days of events on Friday, May 3rd & Saturday, May 4th, 2019. All events were free, and unless otherwise designated on the registration form, open to the public. More on the conference theme and the “unconference” break out sessions below.

Schedule of Events

Those with questions may write to the Humanities for the Public Good Initiative Director Robyn Schroeder (rschroeder [at] unc.edu). Don’t be strangers.

Our Theme: “Why We’re Here”

We chose the theme “Why We’re Here” to center the core impulse of the Humanities for the Public Good initiative, which is our collective human urge to promote the well-being of others–to serve the public good itself, and to engage in critical conversations about the histories of doing that well and badly, and forward evidence and experience-based conversations about ongoing and needed changes in higher education and the cultural sector. We invite engaged scholars, humanists, artists, and cultural workers to come together in a democratic spirit for constructive discussion and workshopping. To talk about why we’re here, in or at Chapel Hill, Orange County, or the Research Triangle, is to promote our collective morale by reminding us what the point of higher education in the humanities is in the first place–to improve minds and lives, to learn from each other, and to build the ideas and questions that lead to relationships, problem-solving, and a culture that reflects the best of what we know.

Humanists have much to learn from others and each other about doing engaged project work–whether in public scholarship, engaged teaching, project-based service, or otherwise. We’ve drawn out a schedule which highlights just some of the vectors of experimentation right now, flagging opportunities and resources as well as sources of inspiration. Key topics include:

• pathways for developing engagement skills
• making knowledge public and accessible
• supporting local artists and understanding the problems and possibilities in the local arts economy
• practical approaches to university-community partnership
• in keeping with Humanities for the Public Good’s upcoming critical projects theme of “Reckonings and Reconciliation”, learning about projects uncovering local histories of marginalization, anti-blackness, and exclusion

A Note on the Small Group Breakout Sessions: Unconferencing Our Symposium

Many folks indicated an interest in taking time to talk across disciplines and professions about public engagement topics, outside of the panel/lecture format. We set aside the Incubator Room at the IAH on Saturday, May 4th, for one-hour meetings proposed by symposium attendees. Symposium attendees had a chance to read proposals and vote 4-6 proposals into existence over breakfast that day.

Humanities for the Public Good Graduate Coordinator Meli Kimathi (mem [//at//] email.unc.edu) coordinated this portion.

Before the HPG Symposium: Popular Narratives and the Experience of War

Co-sponsored by Humanities for the Public Good, the Graduate School, the Carolina Veterans Resource Center, the History Department, and the English & Comparative Literature Department, learn more about the panel discussion and veterans’ writing workshop which took place on Saturday, April 27th, under the direction and management of doctoral students Davis Winkie and Paul Blom.

Are you a veteran?

Have you ever felt a gap between vets and civilians?

Your story can help bridge the gap, and we can help teach you to tell it.

Register for the inaugural UNC Veterans Writing Workshop!

You are invited to a two-part event on April 27, 2019. The first part of the event is an open-to-the-public discussion, where four 1990s/GWOT vets will discuss how American popular culture has influenced the civilian-military divide in their personal experience. The current panelists are:

• Joe Kassabian (author of The Hooligans of Kandahar, host of the Lions Led by Donkeys Podcast)
• Eric Burke (Civil War historian and OIF/OEF enlisted infantryman)
• Kate Dahlstrand (Civil War/Reconstruction historian, director of UGA’s Student Veteran Oral History Project, GWOT enlisted combat vet)
• Michelle Moyd (East African military historian, early/mid ’90s USAF officer)

After the panel discussion, all workshop participants will receive a free catered lunch, courtesy of UNC Humanities for the Public Good. Then you’ll transition into a writing workshop, with writing prompts partly-inspired by the public discussion. The workshop will feature trained facilitators (most of whom are military affiliated) who will help you learn narrative and story-telling skills. If you’re proud of the stories that we help you tell, there is a possibility that our collaboration can continue, building towards publication in an online archive or even an edited book!

Your POC for any questions is co-organizer Davis Winkie. He can be reached via email at jdavisw@live.unc.edu. He’s pretty responsive, but don’t hesitate to follow up on anything that goes 24 hours without a response.

Location: UNC-CH Campus, Carolina Union, Room 3408 (Free parking available on Stadium Drive on weekends)

Date: 4/27/19

Time: 10:30 AM – 4:00 PM

Price: Free

Administrators: Davis Winkie, Paul Blom

Point of Contact: Davis Winkie, jdavisw@live.unc.edu

Event Sponsors: Humanities for the Public Good; The Graduate School

Support also provided by: The College of Arts & Sciences, Division of Fine Arts & Humanities; The College of Arts & Sciences, Division of Social Sciences & Global Programs; Carolina Veterans Resource Center; Department of English and Comparative Literature; Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense; Department of History; Center for the Study of the American South

To register for this event, click here.

Note: Registration is only required for the workshop portion of the event. If you are a member of the public interested in attending the discussion panel, you do not need to register in advance.

For more information and regular updates, check us out on Twitter and Facebook.

Check out our resources and help us spread the word about this event! Download and share Flyer 1 and Flyer 2!

About the Event Organizers:

Davis Winkie is a military history Ph.D. student at UNC. He studies America’s memory of its 20^th century wars, with a particular focus on war movies made during the 1950s and 60s. His research also explores how movies and other popular narratives of war potentially affected Vietnam-era service members. Additionally, Davis is a soldier in the NC Army National Guard, and he will commission as a second lieutenant this summer. Davis will be moderating the panel discussion portion of the event.

Paul Blom is a second-year PhD student in English and Comparative Literature, whose research focuses on the ethical and political implications of depicting trauma in literature. This research is partially motivated by his own brother’s combat experiences in Iraq from 2003-2004. Paul has taught and worked with underserved populations overseas and currently serves as a Teaching Fellow at UNC. He is the Fiction Editor for The Carolina Quarterly literary magazine and regularly writes scripts for promotional videos and short documentary and narrative films. He has extensive experience teaching composition, writing, and rhetoric.