On Equity and Action, Partnerships

In Good Relation: Reimagining the Grant Process for Community-Based Projects

How can funding models and grant-writing processes be more equitable and inclusive? At The Block, collaborators Kate Hadley Toftness and Lois Taylor Biggs (Cherokee Nation and White Earth Ojibwe) are challenging traditional approaches to fundraising with practices informed by Indigenous practices of collaboration, reciprocity, and sustained dialogue. In the below essay, originally published on the American […]

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Exhibition Stories, Northwestern Learning, On Equity and Action

“What it means to struggle together”: Ashleigh Deosaran on The Living Image of Sound

In Spring 2023 The Block opened The Living Image of Sound: Notes on Jazz and Protest at Northwestern a concise exhibition exploring the intersections of visual art, music, and student-led social justice movements during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition features artwork and ephemera related to the trailblazing poet and musician Sun Ra and […]

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Exhibition Stories, On Equity and Action, Staff Stories

A Grounding in Place: Lois Taylor Biggs reflects on “Woven Being” curatorial research trip

The Block is currently forming the exhibition Woven Being: Indigenous Art in Chicagoland (working title) through Indigenous curatorial methodologies that prioritize collaboration, reciprocity, and sustained dialogue with an expanding, intergenerational community of Indigenous knowledge sharers and non-Indigenous allies.  The Block’s Lois Biggs, (Cherokee Nation and White Earth Ojibwe) Terra Foundation Curatorial Research Fellow, shares a personal account […]

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On Equity and Action, Programs & Events

On Collaboration, Context, and Counterpoints: A Conversation Series on Museum Practice [Video]

Originating at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, A Site of Struggle: American Art against Anti-Black Violence explores how artists have engaged with the reality of anti-Black violence and its accompanying challenges of representation in the United States over a 100 + year period. In conjunction with this exhibition, a national group of curators, educators, and scholars convened […]

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On Equity and Action, Programs & Events

Art, Activism, and Contemporary Resonances of the 1935 NAACP exhibition “An Art Commentary on Lynching” [Video]

The NAACP’s 1935 exhibition, “An Art Commentary on Lynching,” and its use in anti-lynching activism represents a critical but often overlooked moment in American art history. In March 2022, The Block Museum hosted a special conversation about this historical exhibition, the intersection of art and activism, and connections to A Site of Struggle and our community today. […]

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On Equity and Action, Programs & Events

“A fundamental obligation to promote truth”: A Northwestern University Discussion on ‘A Site of Struggle’

How has art been used to protest, process, mourn, and memorialize anti-Black violence within the United States? Originating at Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art, the exhbition A Site of Struggle explores how artists have engaged with the reality of anti-Black violence and its accompanying challenges of representation in the United States over a 100+ year period.  The […]

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