Panel Discussion/Talk

Social Justice Conversation: Hank Willis Thomas and Michelle Woo

Tuesday, May 16, 2023
6 – 7PM

As part of the Bandung 2023 Residency, A4 and MoCADA will present a conversation with Hank Willis Thomas and Michelle Woo, the co-founders of For Freedoms, an artist collective that centers art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation. There will be time for Q&A.

Attendees are invited to join the Zoom if they would like to participate in the Q&A. Otherwise, they can tune in to the livestream of the event on MoCADA’s website here. We will post a recording of the talk on A4’s YouTube channel afterwards.

About Hank Willis Thomas
Hank Willis Thomas lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, as a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad including the International Center of Photography, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Musée du quai Branly, Hong Kong Arts Centre and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art.

His collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), The Writing on the Wall, and For Freedoms. In 2017, For Freedoms was awarded the ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform. Thomas is a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), The Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), Aperture West Book Prize (2008), Renew Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (2007), and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2006). He is also a member of the Public Design Commission for the City of New York.

Most recently in January, Thomas unveiled The Embrace on Boston Common, a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King. Additional public artworks across the country include Unity in Brooklyn, NY. In 2017, Love Over Rules permanent neon was unveiled in San Francisco, CA and All Power to All People in Opa Locka, FL. Thomas holds a BFA from New York University, New York, NY (1998) and an MA/MFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004). He received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD, and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME, in 2017.

About Michelle Woo
Michelle Woo is a cultural producer, art historian and curator based in Los Angeles. She is a co-founder of For Freedoms, an artist-run organization that models creative civic engagement for which she received a ICP Infinity Award in 2017 and a National Art Award in 2022. Her diverse role includes strategy and design of national campaigns, public art initiatives, exhibitions and programming. She also advises artists and organizations on business management and cultural strategy.

About For Freedoms
For Freedoms is an artist collective that centers art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation. By wielding the power of art, they aim to deepen and expand our capacity to interrogate what is and imagine what could be. Together, they seek infinite expansion.

Location

Virtual, Zoom

Tags

Visual Art

Related fellowships & awards

The Bandung Residency

Related Events