Return Visit of Collaboration by Columbia’s ESB Institute and Art Works Projects
to Illustrate Humanitarian Crisis
Chicago, IL (May 8, 2009) – Congo/Women Portraits of War: The Democratic Republic of Congo, the critically acclaimed photography exhibition which premiered at Columbia College Chicago in February, returns to D.C. next week in connection with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations joint subcommittee hearing: Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones, with case studies on the DRC and Sudan. The joint hearing of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women’s Issues and the Subcommittee on African Affairs will be chaired by U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI).
(photo by Lynsey Addario)
Congo/Women is a collaboration of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago (ESB Institute) and Art Works Projects (AWP). It features work by award-winning photojournalists Lynsey Addario (winner of a 2009 Pulitzer Prize, and ESB Institute Fellow), Marcus Bleasdale, Ron Haviv and James Nachtwey. The exhibition, which uses images and text to raise awareness of the crisis of violence against women, is co-directed by Jane M. Saks, executive director of Columbia’s ESB Institute and AWP Executive Director Leslie Thomas.
After its premiere at Columbia, Congo/Women traveled to Washington, D.C. for a Capitol Hill exhibition at which time it caught the attention of Senator Boxer. Senator Boxer and the UNFPA are sponsoring the return visit. Congo/Women will be on display for public viewing in the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda from May 11 through 15. The Rotunda is open 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.
The joint subcommittee hearing on gender-based violence will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13 in the Dirksen Senate Building, room 419. U.S. legislators will hear testimony about violence against women (particularly rape) in conflict zones, using Sudan and the DRC as case studies. The range of panelists will include: women from the DRC and Sudan, including Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu (journalist, DRC); experts on the issue of gender violence; and government witnesses including Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State, The Honorable Melanne Verveer.
Following the hearing, there will be a public reception in the Russell Senate Office Building, Hearing Room 332. Speakers will include: Lynn Nottage (winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for her play Ruined and an ESB Institute/Goodman Fellow); Ron Haviv and Marcus Bleasdale (award-winning photojournalists whose work is part of Congo/Women); and Senator Boxer. Actor Quincy Tyler Bernstine will perform a monologue from her role in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined.
“The Congo/Women exhibition sheds light not only on the situation facing women of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but on gender-based violence around the world and demonstrates why the arts have a powerful role as mirror and map to influence social change,” says exhibition co-director, Jane M. Saks. “Inserting the arts within the highest levels of governmental hearings and process acknowledges a profound and far-reaching fact: art can encourage our greatest human capacity and can be the vehicle for the deepest of human expressions and actions.”
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Lynsey Addario is a photojournalist based in Istanbul, Turkey, where she photographs for the New York Times, National Geographic, and Fortune magazine, among others. In Spring 2008, Addario received a Fellowship from the Institute, which commissioned her documentation of women and girls in the DRC for the Congo/Women Project. In 2009, Addario was awarded the Pulitzer Prize as part of the New York Times team for International Reporting.
Marcus Bleasdale has spent more than seven years covering the brutal conflict within the borders of the DRC. He is widely published in the UK, Europe and the USA in publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine, Geo, Stern, The New Yorker, TIME, Newsweek and National Geographic Magazine.
Ron Haviv is an award-winning photojournalist who has produced some of the most important images of humanitarian crises that have made headlines from around the world since the end of the Cold War. He is a co-founder of VII, a collectively-owned photo agency founded in 2001 specializing in conflict photography. His work is published by top magazines worldwide, including: Fortune, New York Times Magazine, Time, Vanity Fair, Paris Match and Stern.
James Nachtwey’s photography has been exhibited around the world in major exhibitions and has been published extensively throughout his career. He has been awarded the Overseas Press Club’s coveted Robert Capa Gold Medal an unprecedented five times. He has worked on major photographic essays in countries around the world. In 2001, he became one of the founding members of the photo agency, VII.
PRODUCERS
Congo/Women is produced by Art Works Projects and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago.
Art Works Projects (AWP) is a Chicago-based arts organization that uses art and design in service of human rights issues. Using a range of visual arts mediums, AWP provides opportunities for public, media, and political attention to these issues. With the success of the organization’s first initiative, DARFUR/DARFUR, the desire grew to create other exhibitions devoted to the public good. The need for an umbrella organization to manage and develop these projects became obvious and Art Works Projects was launched. Projects in development include human trafficking/force labor and international potable water inequities. www.artworksprojects.org.
Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago, (Institute) is recognized as a national and international creator, presenter and collaborator of multidisciplinary programming on the discourse of gender, culture, creativity and community. The Institute offers a wide range of public programs, including exhibitions, performances and panel discussions, and supports new research and creative work through its Fellowship program. Through its multi-faceted work, the Institute addresses ideas of access, representation, equity, and participation, as well as race and class, using the arts and media as central means of research, public education and advocacy. The Institute locates human rights at the center of its mission and develops innovative cross-disciplinary public and scholarly programs that engage a broad audience. At the core of the Institute’s work is the belief that art has the ability to make good on the democratic process and is a strong tool for social change. www.colum.edu/institutewomengender.
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect. www.unfpa.org
Jane M. Saks, Co-Director and Creative Advisor of Congo/Women, is the Executive Director of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, at Columbia College Chicago. As a feminist activist, arts administrator, writer and educator, Saks has focused on arts and culture, women, gender, race, LGBTQ issues, and political, human rights and social justice movements. Recently, she was honored with a “40 Who’ve Made a Difference Award” by Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, in recognition of BPI’s 40th Anniversary in 2009.
Leslie Thomas, Co-Director and Curator of Congo/Women, is a curator, designer, architect and the founding Director of Art Works Projects (AWP). AWP is committed to putting art to work for human rights and environmental causes. Current projects include the internationally touring projections and print installation of DARFUR/DARFUR and a forthcoming exhibition on human trafficking and forced labor.
Congo/Women is sponsored by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and Humanity United.
For more information about the internationally traveling exhibition and educational campaign, visit www.congowomen.org and www.colum.edu/institutewomengender
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The Big Read Celebrates Ray Bradbury with a Slew
of Great Events and One Good Old Fashioned Type-Off
CHICAGO, IL (May, 2009) – On Friday, May 1, 2009, Columbia’s library celebrated iconic writer Ray Bradbury by hosting the Typewriter Olympics. In an age where cut and paste and instant delete make writing a letter, or even a novel, a seamless process, students were able to see what the old-school masters’ had to contend with by using the real deal: a typewriter. Ray Bradbury “penned” his classic dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451 on a metered typewriter in the basement of the UCLA library – a process which required payment of ten cents each half hour.
At Columbia’s Typewriter Olympics, students sat in quiet concentration around a large table set in the window of the 623 S. Wabash building, clacking away on vintage typewriters in an attempt at writing their own short story inspired by Fahrenheit 451. Three stories will be chosen by Columbia writing faculty from all disciplines. All three stories will be published, inevitable typos and all, in a small-run in-house artist’s book that will be presented to the winning authors – and to Ray Bradbury himself. Copies of the hand-bound books will be archived in the library’s permanent collection.
The Typewriter Olympics was just one of many successful events that the Columbia Library hosted as a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant. Columbia’s Big Read honored all things Bradbury, featuring a film screening and discussion of the Francois Truffaut film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, an evening with authorized Bradbury biographer Sam Weller, the unique and quirky Edible Books competition through the Center for Book and Paper Arts, as well as numerous panels and discussions examining the timeless issues of intellectual and creative freedom that are pondered in Fahrenheit 451.
In addition to all of the Columbia festivities, The Big Read included book discussion groups in Chicago and suburban area public libraries and bookstores, as well as student-focused activities within the Berwyn and Cicero districts and the Chicago Public Schools. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences and Arts Midwest. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, which is a state agency.
As the school year draws to a close, Manifest, Columbia’s Urban Arts Festival will be featuring the vision of Ray Bradbury in the parade of creativity, Spectacle Fortuna. Columbia costume design students are working to bring to life characters from Bradbury’s various books in the form of larger-than-life puppets and elaborate costumes. Some of the characters being brought to life include the firemen and the mechanical hound from Fahrenheit 451, the children and Mr. Dark from Something Wicked This Way Comes, the female martian Ylle from The Martian Chronicles and the central characters from The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and The Illustrated Man. While Ray Bradbury will not be able to travel to Chicago to ride in the parade due to health concerns, an authentic Ray Bradbury costume will be worn by one of the parade participants. As a final tribute to the prolific writer, Ray Bradbury will be a recipient of the 2009 Honorary Doctorate Degree at commencement. Bradbury will be accepting his degree via a pre-taped interview.
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CHICAGO, IL (May 5, 2009) As part of the college’s ongoing H1N1 influenza prevention program, Columbia is conducting an additional distribution of personal hygiene supplies to members of the Columbia College Chicago community. Supplies available include hand sanitizer, towlette packets and pop-up containers of bleach disinfecting wipes. Supplies will be distributed to individuals by the security guards at campus buildings. For the location of campus buildings at which supplies are currently available, Columbia faculty, staff and students should check their email for the recently distributed announcement.
There are currently no cases of suspected or confirmed H1N1 influenza at Columbia.
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