6:00 p.m., Zoom
New Mainers: A Conversation with Reza Jalali
Reza Jalali, Executive Director of the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center, is a Kurd from Iran, a human rights and refugee activist who has lived in Maine since 1985. He was prominently featured in Making it in America: a sourcebook on eminent ethnic Americans by Elliott Robert Barkan. He has also authored several essays, short stories, and commentaries that have appeared in the local and international newspapers. Jalali has served as a member of Amnesty International USA Board of Directors and led delegations to different refugee camps in Turkey and Bosnia. He has participated in numerous United Nations-sponsored international conferences in Korea, Japan, and Austria. In 1992, he visited the White House as part of a national delegation to discuss the plight of Kurdish refugees fleeing Iraq.
Jalali’s forthcoming book, God Speaks in Many Accents, is about the religions that Maine’s immigrants have brought with them to their new home in the U.S.
7:00 p.m., Virtual
Social Justice Zine Workshop led by Elizabeth Jabar and her former students, socially engaged artists Marcella Green and Sara Inacio
Marcella Green is a socially engaged artist from Pennsylvania residing in Providence, RI. She works primarily in photography, writing, and socially engaged art installations. She is the founder of an independent art library and community space called fathom library. She earned her bachelor’s degrees in Creative Writing and Sculpture from Binghamton University in 2014, a Post Bac Certificate in Photography MassArt in 2016, and her MFA in Image and Text from Ithaca College in 2018.
Sara Inacio is a Brazilian printmaker and socially engaged artist currently based in Providence, RI. Sara’s work is about passage; a movement of going through and leaving behind. Through prints, books, sculptural installations and public engagement, Sara’s work evokes a sense of transience and deep connection to place, both in relationship to their surroundings as well as in community spaces.
Elizabeth Jabar is a feminist printmaker who explores a range of personal-political issues in her work including cultural identity, representation, equity and maternal ethics. Her practice is located in the studio, the classroom and the community where she co-creates collaborative and participatory projects with students, colleagues and community members. Her hybrid works on paper and cloth display a highly personal visual language that incorporates motifs from popular culture, folk art, religious traditions, and textiles. Elizabeth’s printed objects and environments embody printmaking’s democratic tradition of resistance and collective power and reflect her commitment to art as a tool for social change.
6:00 p.m. screening – Ostrove and Virtual
7:00 p.m. Q+A – Virtual
Join us for a screening of “Voices from the Barrens: Native Peoples, Blueberries and Sovereignty” along with a Q+A with the director, Nancy Ghertner and Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Officer, Donald Soctomah
This documentary by Nancy Ghertner captures the wild blueberry harvest of the Wabanaki People from the USA and Canada as the tribes are challenged to balance blueberry hand raking traditions with the economic realities of the world market.
Each August, First People of the Canadian Wabanaki, the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes cross the US/Canada border into Maine to take part in the tradition of hand raking blueberries with their Passamaquoddy brothers and sisters. This crossing to Maine blueberry barrens isn’t considered “agricultural labor” but is part of the traditional harvest from the earth.
The screening will be followed by a live Q+A with Nancy Ghertner and Donald Soctomah, Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Officer. Please email questions you may have prior to the screening to [email protected]
7:00 PM, Virtual
Baratunde Thurston will be the Spring 2021 keynote speaker for the humanities theme Boundaries and Margins.
Thurston is an Emmy-nominated host who has worked for The Onion, produced for The Daily Show, advised the Obama White House, and wrote the New York Times bestseller How To Be Black. He is the executive producer and host of two podcasts: How To Citizen with Baratunde and We’re Having A Moment which CNET called “the most important podcast of 2020.” He’s also the creator/host of the weekly pandemic show, Live On Lockdown. In 2019, he delivered what MSNBC’s Brian Williams called “one of the greatest TED talks of all time.” Right now, the writer, activist, and comedian is using his powerful voice to help people understand this revolutionary moment with his unique blend of insight, humor, and empathy.
This event is free and open to Colby students, faculty, staff, parents, alum, and the broader community.
Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities, Colby Museum of Art, the Oak Institute for Human Rights, and Colby College SGA.
7:00 p.m., Zoom
Wabanaki Homelands and Colonial Borders,” a Workshop by the Bomazeen Land Trust
The Bomazeen Land Trust enables direct descendants of the Abenaki and Wabanaki peoples to renew and resume caretaking roles for their lands and waters through rematriation. Their primary purpose is the repossession, perpetual protection, and healing of ancestral Wabanaki spaces with historical, spiritual, ecological, and cultural significance to our nations, primarily in the Kennebec and Androscoggin river watersheds.
Join us for an educational workshop on Abenaki and Wabanaki history, current affairs and projects, and sustainable living and agricultural practices, led by two members of the Bomazeen Land Trust.
5195 Mayflower Hill
Waterville, Maine 04901
P: 207-859-5195
[email protected]
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