November 16 — Imagining a Global City: Visions of Indianapolis and the World
How can we learn from the best wisdom the world’s cultures have to offer? Three works of African art from the IMA collection will frame this conversation. For example, the Songye people in Congo bring out a statue in times of crisis to inspire the community’s collective imagination. What equivalent “community power figures” might spark imaginative discussions about local challenges? Begin with an optional tour that highlights these art works.
When: Sunday, November 16, 2 – 4 pm
Where: Deer-Zink Pavilion Indianapolis Museum of Art 4000 N. Michigan Rd., Indianapolis, IN 46208
FREE
Three African works from the Indianapolis Museum of Art will frame a wide-ranging conversation about the links binding Indiana and the world. More than simply demonstrating that the IMA is one of Central Indiana’s most important international institutions, this discussion will explore broader issues: How are Hoosiers engaged around the world in search for solutions to global problems? How are Indiana neighborhoods adapting to growing numbers of newcomers from around the planet, each group bringing new traditions, new challenges and new resources? And how can all of us in Indiana learn to adopt the best that the world’s cultures have to offer?
But first, for your listening pleasure …
This Provocate playlist is so cool, we’ll put it up front so you can start listening to Ghanaian, Congolese, and Nigerian beats while reading about this equally cool event coming to the IMA. Feel free to turn up the speakers.
Before the discussion in the IMA’s Deer Zink Pavilion, optional informal tours of the Eiteljorg Gallery of African Art will highlight the works that will frame the discussion. Images of these pieces will be projected during the conversation in the Pavilion. IMA’s African art curator Ted Celenko will explain the three works’ meaning and significance. Then several local educators, doctors, workers with refugees, and others will stimulate a discussion that explores how the global and local issues brought into relief by the pieces shape all of our lives.
An example: One piece will be “Healing of the Abiku Children,” by the Nigerian artist Twins Seven Seven. This painting displays beliefs of the Yoruba people about the relations of birth and family, death and community healing. Elsie Rotich of the IU Medical School’s partnership with Moi University in Kenya will discuss how Western medicine is being adapted to African cultures in Kenya and elsewhere. Shola Ajaboye of the African Center will discuss the challenges facing African immigrants to Indianapolis when they deal with our health care system. The entire audience will be invited to imagine how our understandings of the connectedness of life and healing can be made richer by the newcomers coming to Indianapolis, and by the experiences of Hoosiers working around the world.
A second piece shaping the discussion will be El Anatsui’s “Duvor,” a magnificent “community cloth” made from scrap aluminum cans and copper wire. The discussion stimulated by “Duvor” will go beyond Africa, and include issues of ecological sustainability and global waste, and the environmental connections between Indiana and the world.
A third work will be a 19th century community power figure of the Songye people in Congo. This statue was brought out at times of crisis for villages, to inspire ideas and provoke the collective imagination about how to address the urgent problems facing the community. The audience will be encouraged to imagine the sorts of equivalent “community power figures” that might spark our own imaginative discussions about how to address some of the crises facing Indianapolis and the world today.
Following the discussion in Deer Zink Pavilion, participants will be allowed to tour the IMA’s galleries on their own, viewing the pieces with newly “globalized” eyes, imagining how the works of art might illuminate our changing place in a shrinking world.
Why does Provocate think you should attend this event?
OK, Provocate thinks you should go because it’s a Provocate event. It is a chance to experience what a cultural institution like IMA can offer: a space for creative people to gather, an environment that will provoke conversations that would not have occurred otherwise, an opportunity to stimulate new ideas to solve problems.
If you think this sounds interesting, be sure to check out …
A sibling event will take place a few days later, November 19, with a discussion of how people from Indiana are working around the world to solve problems. A parallel conversation at IMA will be Maxwell Anderson and West African Museum Program director Boureima Diamitani on October 9. The themes discussed will pop up in other events as well. For instance, the Songye power figure’s symbolization of the community’s values and unity should inspire you to go to the exhibit of Inuit art at the Eiteljorg that opens November 15. Or go to the exhibit at IMA of “Court Art from the Ming Dynasty” for another example of political values and artistic expression have intersected.
