Piedmont College plans “Collaboration of the Dream”

The Lillian E. Smith Center (LES) at Piedmont College will host a one-day virtual symposium on March 4, that will explore art and the social justice movement.  “Collaboration of the Dream,” will be held from 9:30am to 3pm at the Swanson Center for the Performing Arts and will include presentations by four artist activists.  Participants include Chuck Brown, Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt, Marie Cochran, and Amisho Baraka. Brown is the creator of Image Comics’ On the Stump and co-creator of the Eisner Award-winning Image Comics’ series Bitter Root. Merritt is a historian, writer, activist, and author of the award-winning book Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South. Cochran is the founding curator of the Affriclachian Artist Project and the 2020/2021 Lehman Brady Visiting Professor with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Baraka is a hip-hop artist and co-founder of Forth District and The And Campaign, two groups that advocate for social change.  Smith, the namesake of the center, wrote regularly about art and how it intersected with and inspired social movements, said LES Director Dr. Matthew Teutsch.  “To enact change, we must work together,” said Teutsch. “Smith understood the role of art in creating and fostering unions among individuals in the fight against racism, oppression, and social injustice. She saw that art can serve as the connection bringing us together and moving us towards a better society.”  LES serves as an educational center and an artist retreat.  The Center is named for the social justice activist and highly-acclaimed author of Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream and is located on the property where she lived and worked in Clayton, Georgia.  To comply with safety protocols, in-person attendance at the symposium is limited to Piedmont faculty and staff. The public may view a live stream of the event by registering and paying $10. To learn more, visit the LES webpage <piedmont.edu/symp>.