S’mores for our final and OE 2016 in Oakland

S'mores as our final class activity.


 

The semester is over up at Siena and in lieu of a final, we made S’mores in the lecture hall, over sterno! A fitting end for a great class and wonderful group of students.  Thanks to ALL OF YOU for your enthusiasm, generosity, curiosity, and open-mindedness. 

Out in front of Oakland Museum of California, where the conference was held
and for the first time ever, there was a charge to attend the keynote talks.

The end of the semester signaled another Open Engagement Conference.  

This year the conference was held in Oakland, California and the theme was POWER.  There were many great moments at this year’s conference including a guided walk in Oakland lead by policylink,  a talk by Precarious Knowledge Collective (Dipti Desai and Jess Hanlin both NYU professors) about artists creating maps and using mapping systems to broadcast and make visible vital information, and a presentation by the San Quentin Prison Arts Project.

During one lunch hour I met several Canadian women wrestlers who provided some materials to help us develop our wrestling personas and I learned how to do a head lock. I also learned to hip hop (well, sort of.) from an Oakland organization called Destiny Arts.  They use hip hop as a framework for creative youth development and empowerment.

This year’s first keynote talk was given by Suzanne Lacy.  After a very long day on Saturday, I raced back to where I was staying at 10:30pm, edited the 1:45 minute talk down to 1 hour and uploaded it to dropbox so my students could listen for their last class.  And you can listen too, the link is on the right. Here is her website to learn more about all of her projects she talks about. 

And last but certainly not least, the final event at the conference was a keynote talk by Angela Davis.  All I can say is it was excellent and POWERFUL!  I recorded this talk as well and there is a link on the right.  Her talk included many interesting artists, musicians, philosophers, and political activists.  I have created a page with links to some of them here.  

Stay tuned for more updates and images on all of the intellectually engaging, aesthetically pleasing, and fun field trips planned for the summer!