KAM and our campus and community partners issued a call for art in February 2021 for an exhibition titled Pandemics as a Portal to Change.
Co-sponsored by Krannert Art Museum, the Museum of the Grand Prairie, The Urbana Free Library, Urbana Arts and Culture Program, the College of Fine and Applied Arts at Illinois, and Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. Supported in part by Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
The call for art sought visual art, creative writing, original music, video, audio, and performance focused on hopeful approaches that creatively imagine what the future can look like. It was open to creators on campus and throughout Champaign County.
The exhibition includes 79 works of art submitted by 52 artists, middle schoolers through seniors, across a range of topics from health and mental health to the environment to racial justice and community-building. It is on view in the Hood Classroom and online via YouTube.
Painting, sculpture, digital art, animation, creative writing, graphic design, and community engagement work submitted to the project revealed the astounding array of creative thinking and imagining taking place in locally.
Many artists approach difficult topics with vulnerability. Others utilize humor and fantasy to reveal their present struggles and point a way toward a mutual future that is just and peaceful for our community.
Exhibiting Artists
Annie F Adams
DoMonique Arnold
Eric Benson & Jason Lindsey
Jess Beyler
BlackMau
Tachel Brown
Starla Carpenter
Kay Crushon
Kim Curtis
Keenan Dailey
Nick Dalrymple
Ja Nelle Davenport-Pleasure
Debra Domal
Ashanti Files
Camille Files
Kayla Files
Kinsey Fitzgerald
Dan Gilbert
Crystal Hartman
Sara Jahn
Michael R. Jeffords
Melia Kaplan-Hartnett
Eunbee Kim
John Kotnarowski
Ruth Lantz
Jihee Lee
Ralph Lewis (composer), Dr. Elisabeth Stimpert (clarinet soloist), Robin Meiksins (video editor)
Anna Longworth
Anne Namatsi Lutomia
McQueen Family Players
Jean Mendoza
Xtopher Morris
Sierra Murphy
Abiquiu Emerson Nesbitt & Christine Sevec-Johnson
Sheila K. Parinas
Cassandra Peak
Shannon Percoco
Avalon Ogolsky
Sasha Rubel
Cindy Sampson
Anushri Sinha
elizaBeth Simpson
Lidia Turner
Rachel J Weber
Nathan Westerman
Charles Wisseman
Sarah Wisseman
Ann Yeung
Yao Zhang
Bingyu Zhou
Watch
Organized by Julia Nucci Kelly, Katie Snyder, and Rachel Storm. Video editing by Jason Liggett at UPTV 6, Urbana. Graphic Design by Madison Wilcoxen.
