Curated by: AIS Students + Education Curator Kimberly Becoat, and 2022-2023 Teaching Artists
SUMMARY
Inspired by Octavia Butler, MoCADA 2022-2023 Artists in Schools students explore the environment through the lens of climate and social issues and how to live sustainable lives in community with one another. Through our shared lived experiences, what can we do to preserve Earth and the social wellness of our communities.
Entitled, Earthseed: Waking Up Our Souls, students from PS 375 – Jackie Robinson School, PS 316 Elijah Stroud School of Excellence, and MS 267 Math, Science, and Technology worked across 20 weeks in tandem with MoCADA teaching artists to produce works inspired by this theme, which eventually culminated with an exhibition featuring works made the students.
To find out about other MoCADA youth programs, click here.
Artists in Schools 2022-2023 Team
Many thanks to School Coordinators, Aides, Teachers, and Administration, including:
PS 316 Elijah G Stroud International Baccalaureate Elementary School
Principal Olga Maluf, Assistant Prinicipal Karen Weekes, Assistant Prinicipal Michael Pizzingrillo, Parent Coordinator Karen Jenkins
PS 375 Jackie Robinson School
Principal Mecca Geters, Community Liaison Julieth Kennedy Yearwood, and Parent Coordinator Shatema Dockery
MS 267 Math, Science and Technology
Principal Patricia King and Parent Coordinator Kirieff Pettway
And many, many thanks to the patience and expertise of MoCADA’s education staff, including:
Kimberly M. Becoat (MoCADA Education Curator) is a contemporary mixed media artist whose work is a stylistic abstraction with a conceptual investigation of new materials and visual experiences with social commentary. Her most recent abstract & conceptual work is an investigation of urban environments meant to create “urban displacement”, such as in public housing – aimed to surgically remove “massive amounts of Blacks and Latinos” into designated forgotten pockets of city landscapes. Kimberly has been featured in a number of exhibits including her current solo exhibition; URBANIA, at MoCADA Museum in New York, Welcome to Urbania, at RUSH Arts Gallery NY (solo exhibit), New Abstractions, at Essie Green Galleries (solo exhibit), Capital One Bank in NY, BAM -art at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, and Deutsche Bank as well as the television shows, HBO’s Insecure, Netflix’s Luke Cage and the FX series, The Americans.
M. Scott Johnson (Teaching Artist, Sculpture) revives the intuitive process of Direct Carving in Black American expression while investigating the mythologies, ritual and post-colonial realities of the culture. Deeply impacted by his 19-year teaching artist residency at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, NY, Johnson has developed a unique multi-historical vision of contemporary Negro aesthetics. As an undergraduate student, Johnson was intellectually mentored by acclaimed Black anthropologist, Dr. Warren Perry. Perry was central in his recognition of anthropology as a conduit to map and reclaim dormant visual aesthetics. The essay Characteristics of Negro Expression (1934) by cultural anthropologist, Zora Neal Hurston, provided Johnson his Rosetta Stone.
M. Scott Johnson works are included in the permanent collections of Hampton University Museum, VA.; Kenkelaba House NY; The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture NY; and the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway. His work has been exhibited at the Embassy of the Republic of Ghana D.C.; Galerie Myrtis MD; Harvard University; Hampton University Museum VA; Kenkeleba House NY; Wilber Jennings Gallery NY; TransAfrica Forum; National Gallery of Zimbabwe; Grey Art Gallery at New York University; Museum of Contemporary Diasporan Art Brooklyn NY; Rush Arts Gallery, NY; The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture NY; New York Botanical Gardens; The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History MI; United Talent Agency Artspace Los Angeles; U.S. Embassy in Oslo Norway;The 13th Havana Biennale, Galeria Carmen Montilla and the 59th Venice Biennale Personal Structures: Time, Space and Existence at Palazzo Bembo. Johnson’s public work with Black youth have been installed throughout New York City including the Bronx Historical Society, Cork Gallery in Lincoln Center and more.
Sunah Nash (Teaching Artist, Painting techniques) is a visual artist, writer, and educator from Newark, NJ. She is currently pursuing a BFA at Pratt Institute, and holds a previous degree in social science. Her academic and personal pursuit of the humanities and social sciences informs her own work and teaching practices, particularly her anthropological interests in myth, history, and the human story. Sunah is a MoCADA Artists in Schools teaching artist and a frequent guest instructor at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Junior Scholars Program.
Maya Pritchard (Teaching Artist, Sculpture) is a Brooklyn born multimedia artist whose work and experience ranges from Mural making displaying scenes of Caribbean heritage and portraits community members to hand built ceramics vessels. Her work & teaching centers the principles of organic process, community, collective responsibility, resistance and joy. She is constantly inspired by the ever evolving scenery of her environment, the ingenious originality of young minds and the immensity of the imagination. If she isn’t in her vibrant community garden offering hand-building classes, you can find her most days squinting for new tags and street art on the way to the studio.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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Made possible thanks to generous gifts from NYC Council Member Crystal Hudson, Council Member Chi Ossé, and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with City Council :
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MoCADA is committed to giving wings to artists by bringing dynamic, contemporary African art to a broad audience through a series of highly visible artists’ projects, new commissions, installations, and exhibitions in public spaces, like this virtual gallery. Your support goes in a long way in helping MoCADA create exhibitions and other special programs that benefit the community. Click GiveMo to give a gift today.
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