Photo by Joshua Franzos
The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art explores the healing power of visual storytelling by bringing in artist vanessa german as this year’s Jerome Nerman Visiting Lecturer.
Award-winning and multi-talented citizen artist vanessa german works across sculpture, performance, communal rituals, immersive installation and photography. Her work seeks to repair and reshape disrupted systems, spaces and connections. german’s practice proposes new models for social healing, utilizing creativity and tenderness as vital forces to confront the historical and ongoing catastrophes of structural racism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, resource extraction and misogynoir.
A visual storyteller, german utilizes assemblage and mixed media, combining locally found objects to build protective ritualistic structures. german’s artistic practice is intertwined with and inextricable from her dedicated role in activism and community leadership. Upholding artmaking as an act of restorative justice, german confronts and begins to dismantle the emotional and spiritual weight imposed by the multi-generational oppression of African American communities. This activist instinct emerges in german’s work to postulate powerful narratives of freedom and love.
Her work is held in numerous private and public collections and has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Free and open to the public, this event will be held on May 10, with a reception beginning at 5:30 p.m. For those who cannot attend in person, this event will be livestreamed starting at 6:30 p.m. Space is limited, RSVP today.
