Every year, the JSMA partners with the University of Oregon’s Common Reading—campuswide programming around a shared book and its themes—to organize a Common Seeing exhibition that explores and expands on the Common Reading through visual art. The 2020-21 novel is This is My America by UO Assistant Vice Provost for Advising, Kimberly Johnson. The Common Reading’s charge of Listen. Learn. Act. incorporates different bodies of work across multiple platforms, focusing on Blackness, Black experience, and dismantling racism. The works on view in this year’s Common Seeing, on loan from the collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer, are by Black American artists Hank Willis Thomas (American, b. 1976) and Alison Saar (American, b. 1956). Their art compels us to look, listen, learn, and act.

The JSMA believes that art can move people to change. As an academic art museum, it is critical for us to listen, learn, and act in order to build trust and understanding. We are committed to the advancement of anti-racism in museum culture and diverse and equitable approaches in our work. The JSMA’s exhibitions and public programs strive to amplify multiple perspectives, experiences, and voices. LOOK. Listen. Learn. Act. is generously made possible by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.

 

Image: Alison Saar (American, b. 1956). Sorrow’s Kitchen (detail), 2020. Wood, tin, acrylics, spray tar, ceiling tin and linoleum, 28 x 12 x 10 in. Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer (Photo Credit: L.A. Louver).  

 

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is pleased to host Nkame, a solo exhibition dedicated to the work of the late Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999). During her short but fertile career, she produced an extraordinary body of work central to the history of contemporary printmaking in Cuba and abroad. 

Nkame: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón is curated by Cristina Vives and organized by the Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana, Cuba, with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Exhibition Tour Management by Landau Traveling Exhibition, Los Angeles, CA. The exhibition premiered in the United States in 2016, and in 2017, ArtNews magazine named it one of the top ten exhibitions in the world. Behind the Veil of a Myth, a 2018 publication written by Cristina Vives and edited by the Estate of Belkis Ayón, the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, and Estudio Figueroa-Vives in Havana, accompanies the exhibition.

Image: Belkis Ayón, Sikán, 1991, collagraph. Courtesy of the Estate of Belkis Ayón.

Artist Statement:

Pea Baby is a series of illustrations telling the tale of Angela, who happens to swallow a holy pea. This pea has chosen Angela, much like the Lord chose the Virgin Mary to give birth to Jesus. And so, Angela gives birth to a pea baby. In this series, I wanted to return to a childhood fear I had growing up in Catholic School in which God suddenly chose me to give birth to the next Jesus. I would imagine this scenario to test my own faith in God, and was frightened by the part of myself that wanted to tell Him, 'No, I don't want to give birth to Jesus.' Returning to this fear as a queer young adult is very interesting; I think it grasps a lot of complications that exist within my relationship to Catholicism.

 

*UO ID required to visit the gallery in person. Virtual artist talk / tour will be available via Visual Arts Team Instagram (@uovisualarts) and Facebook (@visualartsteam).*

“Women Singing in Colonial Mexico” is a lecture-demonstration that features treble vocal music from colonial New Spain. Vocalists in the United States often struggle to find, understand, and perform New Spanish repertoire, and treble-specific repertoire in particular is little-studied and infrequently presented. This presentation examines colonial New Spanish women's musical lives through relevant historical-cultural contexts, offers related repertoire sources to performers, and comments on applicable culturally-informed performance practice. Throughout, Battafarano emphasizes the hybridity of Indigenous, African, and Spanish traditions apparent in colonial New Spanish musical traditions.

Bethany Battafarano, soprano, is an active soloist and consort singer. Her recent solo engagements include the title role in Perti’s La beata Imelde, Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments, and selections of Luzzaschi’s Madrigali for the Concerto delle Donne.

Battafarano has performed and recorded nationally and internationally with such award-winning ensembles as The Rose Ensemble, South Dakota Chorale, Quince Ensemble, and Apollo Master Chorale, among many others. Battafarano is a founding board member, co-chair of the Justice and Best Practices Committee, and soprano with Border CrosSing, which specializes in Latin American choral music. She is also co-founder of Artemis, which performs experimental music and has been commissioned by the Walker Art Center and the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center of New York, among others. Also a composer, Battafarano’s compositions have been commissioned by the Cedar Cultural Center and featured at Studio Z of Zeitgeist and SPNN Studios. When she isn’t musicking, Battafarano enjoys work as a Spanish translator, medical interpreter, and transcriptionist. She holds MA Musicology and MM Voice Performance degrees from the University of Oregon, and undergraduate degrees in Music, Anthropology, and Psychology from Macalester College.

 

This space encourages LGBTQIA+ identifying Jewish students to connect with their peers to build community, share their experiences, and have some fun conversations!

This term, we are meeting on Zoom each Monday from 5-6 p.m.

RSVP to the emailnwaldman@uoregon.eduto receive the Zoom information.

The Bi and Beyond subgroup is for bi+, and questioning students to find community, resources, and explore questions and topics relating to our intersecting identities. We will meet over zoom every two weeks on Mondays from 6 pm- 7 pm starting April 12th. Join the LGBTESS discord server for additional announcements and social activities!

Guest speaker Holly Guise, assistant professor in history at the university of New Mexico, presents “Survivance Alliance: Alaska Native Mutual Aid and Sovereignty 1942–1945.

Live via Zoom:
https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/98399678101?pwd=NU9ycHp4QmwvQlR3UWRPMGlYODdPdz09

This is event is cosponsored by the University of Oregon’s Department of History; Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies; and Native American Studies.

About the speaker

Holly Miowak Guise (Iñupiaq) is an Assistant Professor in History at the University of New Mexico. Her manuscript in progress, “World War II and the First Peoples of the Last Frontier: Alaska Native Voices and Wartime Alaska” focuses on gender, Unangax̂ (Aleut) relocation and internment camps, Native activism/resistance, and Indigenous military service during the war.

Sexual Assault Support Services (SASS) has a support group for members of the LGBTQIA+ community (18+) who have experienced any form of sexual violence in the past or present. SASS services are always free. http://sass-lane.org/

SASS's LGBTQIA+ Support Group

Meets 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month from 5-6:30 p.m.

For any self-identified members of the queer community age 18+ who have experienced sexual violence. 

Drop in. No registration needed. SASS services are always free. 

Are you queer and wanting to explore your spirituality/faith? Join us every Tuesday at 7pm in our queer-only group as we explore Jesus together! Some weeks we study the Bible and others we just find community amongst each other. All people are welcome at any point in their faith journey.

To access the virtual zoom links, please click on the yellow button named "Join Stream". Which can be found in the top right corner when you click on the event to pull up the complete details.

 

In light of the surge of anti-Asian violence including the recent shootings that occurred in Atlanta, the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence (CMAE), University Counseling Services (UCS), and Sexual Violence Prevention & Education (SVPE) are offering a space to validate and name the racialized nature of these violent incidences. During a time we're remote, we wanted to provide a space for students to collectively express and process their fear, pain, and any other emotions that have arisen as a response to the escalated acts of xenophobic, Sinophobic and misogynistic violence towards our East and South-East Asian community members during the pandemic.

Mariko Lin and Bango Gancinia from University Counseling Services will be facilitating this group for all students that identify within the Asian, Desi, & Pacific Islander (ADPI) community. To center community building, this space is open to any students living in the Eugene/Springfield area, so we invite students from Lane Community College and Bushnell University to join us as well.

 

This event is a part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) in April and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) in May. For other SAAM events, please lookout for the Teal SAAM 2021 banner on UO events and visit saam.uoregon.edu. For APAHM events, please visit https://inclusion.uoregon.edu/apahm.