Conversations in Color: Katrina Andry and Dr. Mora Beauchamp-Byrd

1225 North Rampart Street,New Orleans LA 70116

28 September, 2022

Description

Created by the Amistad Research Center, Conversations in Color is a free public cultural series that features artists, educators and community activists in talks about their work and its impact on social change. Presented by the Amistad Research Center, in collaboration with New Orleans Airlift and Third Eye Theatre Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company, artist Katrina Andry and Dr. Mora Beauchamp -Byrd will discuss how art, particularly African American art, serves as a healing practice, and how Andry approaches this idea through the exploration of themes, symbolism, and ideas in her artwork. About our presenters: Katrina Andry is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. She received an M.F.A in printmaking in 2010 and currently lives and works in New Orleans where she maintains a studio. Her work is often in dialogue with the viewer, asking them to confront their own race and gender biases and to consider how it affects the quality of life of their community writ large. Andry was listed in the September 2012 issue of Art in Print magazine as one of the top 50 printmakers. She has recently shown at the Hammonds House Museum (solo), the Pensacola Museum of Art (solo), and the New Orleans Museum of Art. She has also been an artist-in-residence at Anchor Graphics in Chicago, Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA, and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. (Image of Katrina Andry by RJ Eldridge - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99431651) Dr. Mora Beauchamp-Byrd is a Teaching Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University, where she teaches courses in Africana Studies and in Art History. An art historian, curator, and arts administrator, she has taught at Duke University, Spelman College, The University of Tampa and Xavier University of New Orleans. Since 2020, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of the College Art Association (CAA), where she currently serves on the Executive Committee as Vice President for Publications. She has held numerous curatorial and administrative positions at cultural and educational institutions such as the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, The Caribbean Cultural Center (NY), The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and the New Orleans African American Museum of Art, Culture and History (NOAAM). This talk is presented as part of Liberation Vibrations: A Multidisciplinary Project by New Orleans Airlift, the Amistad Research Center, and Third Eye Theater Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company. The full schedule for Liberation Vibrations events in September and October is available here. About our presenting partners: New Orleans Airlift forges connections between people, ideas, and cultures through collaborative artworks. Since 2009, artist-led non-profit New Orleans Airlift has created genre-defying, multi-disciplinary, collaborative public art works. Airlift is best known for their flagship project, Music Box Village, permanently located in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. Founded by Artistic Director and Choreographer Monique Moss, the mission of Third Eye Theatre Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company or TET is to use the arts to achieve metaphysical and spiritual liberation through the practice of Crossroads Collaboration, Trauma-Healing Channeling, and Psyche-Site-Specific Performance. The cultural performance practice is rooted in the discovery of inspiration for innovative movement, within a creative choreographic process based equally on academic research and on introspective, Improvisational exploration. This event is supported by a 2021 Rebirth grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Funding for 2021 Rebirth grants has been administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) and provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the NEH Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) initiative. The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of either the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.