"Curious Story Lab" is a podcast that explores visionaries' of color working to reshape the future of our world. In this season, we explore the concept of "Futuring," delving deep into the stories of creators whose work shifts the narrative around design in the present and offers a glimpse into the future of their field.
In Part 2 of episode 4, Building New Forms of Knowledge, I'm talking with Bill Gaskins. After interviewing both Kelly Walters and Bill Gaskins, because of the depth of what each shared, I felt strongly that this was the only way I could do them justice. They each have such powerful voices in the spaces they occupy through their practices and as educators, curators, writers, and in pushing forward new knowledge and learning. Bill is the founding director of a new program, Photography + Media and Society, at MICA, Maryland College of Art, in Baltimore, Maryland. Bill discusses why he chose to leave the Fine Arts to join the field-based program as an affinity group among Graduate Directors at MICA because the Program is not limited to the white cubes of Fine Art alone. Furthermore he talks about the ways in which his students examine ideas through fine art, fashion, advertising, video journalism, politics, marketing, and other contexts, while fostering radical collaborations in and beyond the MICA community. Then Bill speaks about what it's like for him not just to be a professor, but what it means to be a transformative professor.
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Email me: curiousstory21@gmail.com
Credits:
Creator & Host: Michele Y. Washington
Producer: Alicia Ajayi @aliciaoajayi
Editor: Angelina Bruno
Sound Engineer + Music: Roifield Brown
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You can check out Bill Gaskin's website. billgaskins.com
For more information on the Photography+ Media and Society, program at MICA,
Follow him on Instagram: @billgaaskins
Books:
Good & Bad Hair: Photographs by Bill Gaskins, Publisher Rutgers University Press
short film The Meaning of Hope
Exhibitions:
His work has been featured at these major institutions: Crocker Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, and The Smithsonian Institution
Writings:
Working Together: Lou Draper and the Kamionge Workshop, published by Duke University Press,
Out of Place, contributor Bill Gaskins
You can also find many of his essays in these publications: NKA; Journal of Contemporary African Art, Artsy, Aperture, Nature, and The New Yorker Magazine
Talks:
Art X Activism: Myra Greene X Bill Gaskins
Kamionge at the Schomburg
Black Portraiture (V): Memory & the Archive Past