Past Events
The Sacred Sounds of Black Disinherited Creatives: Fall 2022 Lowell Lecture
Date: November 2, 2022
On November 2, 2022, the Boston University School of Theology with the generous support of the Lowell Institute was proud to sponsor the bi-annual Lowell Lecture in the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground. The lecture by Dr. Emmett G. Price III, entitled “The Sacred Sounds of Black Disinherited Creatives,” sought to demonstrate how the Black/African-American experience has been shaped by and expressed through spirituality and the creative, transcendent power of music. Following the lecture, guest respondents Assistant Professor of New Testament Shively T.J. Smith and Rev. Joshua Lazard(STH’25) insightfully remarked on the engaging talk along with Greg Groover, Jr., Assistant Chair of Ensemble at Berklee College of Music, who responded musically by playing his tenor saxophone. The responsive panel was moderated by Professor of Music Andrew Shenton.
Watch the full lecture below, courtesy of the Lowell Institute and GBH Forum Network.
The Lowell Lecture is made possible by the generous support from the Lowell Institute.
Artist/Activist Marc Bamuthi Joseph at BU
In collaboration with the African American & Black Diaspora Studies Program, the BU Arts Initiative is excited to welcome artist/activist Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Arts & Social Justice Panel
Join us for a panel discussion on Arts & Social Justice, Thursday. Nov. 17th with local activist artists Dzidzor and Anita Morson-Matra moderated by BU professor André de Quadros.
Blackbird, Fly
Friday, November 18, 2022, | 7:00 PM
Location: Tsai Performance Center-685 Commonwealth Ave.
There will also be a performance of BLACKBIRD, FLY on Friday, Nov. 18th. BLACKBIRD, FLY is a tapestry of movement, narrative, music, and Haitian folklore. Both events are free and open to the pubic.
Wilderness Live Performance Art
Crystal and Dzidzor invite the Boston community
Dates: Friday, October 7, 2022, 7-9pm
Location: BU Marsh Chapel
Free and open to the public.
We invite you into the Wilderness - to listen, hear, question, dream, and BE. The Wilderness EP is an invitation to embrace the curiosity of living, liberation, and God. It offers a space to pause, explore and wander through the Wilderness. Witness DZIDZOR and TRIBE perform prayers, proverbs, and poems from the Wilderness EP. The event will feature Letta Neely, Mel Chante, Zamy Maa, and Mestre Chuvisco. This event is located at Boston University Marsh Chapel and will hold structures for students to interact with throughout the day.
Crystal and Dzidzor curate The Wilderness Project, an interactive art installation inviting participants to write ancient and new prayers, proverbs, and poems on ribbons tied to woven structures of Asiatic Bittersweet vines. The installation will be up from Oct 1 - Oct 6th, 2022 at Franklin Park Overlook Ruins and will be exhibited in front of Marsh chapel on Oct 7th from 8 am to 9 pm. Visitors and students are invited to visit the exhibit and add ribbons and stories to the installation at any time between October 1st and October 6th at Franklin Park and Marsh Chapel on October 7th, all day.
Dzidzor is a Ga-Ewe performing artist, curator, community archivist, and current candidate for an MTS at the School of Theology at BU.
‘Legacies’ by Rose B. Simpson at the ICA
Dates: August 11 to January 29, 2023
Location: Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Drive
The artwork of Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983 in Santa Clara Pueblo, NM) encompasses ceramic sculpture, metal work, performance, installation, writing, and automobile design, offering poignant reflections on the human condition. Her ceramic figurative sculptures, which range from intimately scaled works to monumental standing figures, express complex emotional and psychological states, spirituality, women’s strength, and post-apocalyptic visions of the world. Simpson is part of a multigenerational, matrilineal lineage of artists working with clay. She combines processes of producing clay pottery in practice since the 6th century with innovative techniques and materials, connecting tradition and knowledge of her own place in the world today. For Legacies, Simpson’s signature themes and approaches to working with clay are brought together in a focused open floor plan presentation of her ceramic sculptures, including individual figures, pairs, and groupings, and new works made for the exhibition.
‘Fantasy and Truth’ by Jordan Nassar at the ICA
Dates: August 11 to January 29, 2023
Location: Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Drive
Jordan Nassar’s solo exhibition—his first in Boston—presents a selection of his intricate embroidered and mixed media works. Nassar (b. 1985 in New York) draws on traditional Palestinian craft techniques to investigate ideas of home, land, and memory. His work, which he creates in collaboration with Palestinian embroiders and craftspersons, combines geometric patterns with abstracted landscapes, imbued, in the artist’s words, “with yearning, while hopeful and beautiful.” Through complex patterning and a unique attendance to form and color, the painterly aesthetic of Nassar’s embroidery allows the artist to explore relationships between craft and history in new contemporary dialogues.