A conversation about activism, youth incarceration and arts as a catalyst for social change co-sponsored by AS220 and John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, with speakers:

• Je-Shawna Wholley // Program Coordinator, LGBTQ Center, Brown University;
• Anjel Newman // AS220 Youth Director, rapper Medusah Black;
• Marco McWilliams // Activist & grassroots organizer // D.A.R.E. (Direct Action for Rights and Equality); and
• Khalil Saucier // Director of Africana Studies, Bucknell University, formerly at RI College.

AS220 is an artist-run organization committed to providing an unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts. AS220 offers artists opportunities to live, work, exhibit and/or perform in its facilities, which include several rotating gallery spaces, a performance stage, a black-box theater, a print shop, a darkroom and media arts lab, a fabrication and electronics lab, a dance studio, a youth program focusing on youth under state care and in the juvenile detention facilities, four dozen affordable live/work studios for artists, and a bar and restaurant. AS220’s facilities and services are available to any artist who needs a place to exhibit, perform, or create original work and its classes and public-access studios are among the most affordable in the nation. AS220 was founded on the principle that freedom of expression is crucial for the development of strong communities and individual spirits. AS220’s vision for a local unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts was launched in a one-room rental above the Providence Performing Arts Center in 1985 with a budget of just $800. Today, the non-profit owns – and enlivens – three mixed-use buildings, totaling over 100,000 square feet, in the heart of Providence’s downtown and represents a $25 million investment in downtown Providence.

The John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage’s innovative MA program, engaged research, and innovative conferences help students, practitioners and communities make the humanities meaningful and accessible. The Center was founded as the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization in 1979, and part of Brown University since 1995. The Brown Center for Public Humanities defines public humanities through our teaching, projects, and publications.