FOR FREEDOMS Billings

FOR FREEDOMS 50 States Initiative Billings
September/October 2018
Billings, Montana

FOR FREEDOMS 50 States Initiative Billings is a collaborative offering of community conversations, art and correlating events which will provide non-partisan forums for action and discussion of values, place, and patriotism as part of the national For Freedoms 50 States Initiative (see below) in advance of the November 2nd mid-term elections. For more information, please contact Artist Director Sherri Cornett via this website's contact page.

TOWN FORUMS

Native American Race Relations and Healing Series “Freedoms”
Thursday, September 13, 2018, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.,
Billings Public Library
510 N Broadway, Billings, MT

Facilitator: Russell Rowland, Co-Director of this series and main contact for this event, rowlandrussell@gmail.com.
Panelists/Conversation Starters: John J. Robinson, Northern Cheyenne Tribal Court Judge, a member of the Kit Fox Warrior Society and veteran of the United States Army and Janine Pease, D. Ed. is an enrolled Crow Indian, Past President of Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Montana (1982 – 2000) and principal of the Chickadee Lodge Language Immersion School at Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Montana (Dec 2012-present).

Table discussion leaders will include Jen Lynn, Ph.D/Women and Gender Studies/MSUBillings and representatives from Western Native Voice and Billings SURJ.
We welcome all voices and points of view in respectful conversation and encourage questions and active listening as we seek to broaden our understanding of freedom in our community.
Lawn signs (Freedom of _____, Freedom for _____, Freedom to _____ and Freedom for____) will be created to be installed on the Freedom of Speech lawn at MSU Billings during
Facilitation assisted by Adrian Jawort (co-director of this series) and Sherri Cornett

Free To Be Me: Diversity on Campus
Saturday, September 15, 2018 (2:30 – 4:30)
MSUBillings Student Union Building, Rooms A & B and Free Speech Lawn
1500 University Dr, Billings, MT

Facilitator: Reverend Dwight Welch/United Campus Ministries, dwelch@msubillings.edu

Community discussion about discoveries made while sharing our stories and identities facilitated by Rev. Dwight R. Welch of United Campus Ministries and representatives of nontraditional student groups including Out on Campus, the Multicultural Club, Women & Gender Studies, Native American Achievement Center, and TRIO
Discussion followed by creation and installation of Freedom signs on the Free Speech Lawn, including a brief, secular ritual

ART

Freedom Lawn Signs

Facilitator: Sherri Cornett, Curator/Artist sherri@sherricornett.com
Pre-printed signs using For Freedoms templates will be available during both events above for participants to draw/write on.

Signs will be installed on the Free Speech Lawn of the MSU Billings campus as part the end of the Free To Be Me: Diversity on Campus

What Freedom Means Banner Project
Club Art Collective of MSU Billings

Facilitator: Angel Shandy, President, Club Art Collective, angelmshandy@gmail.com
Club Art Collective members with participation from other campus groups will create large canvas murals to install on campuses and at churches with wall tags about the Billings activations prior to above two events and be installed at both events.

RELATED COMMUNITY EVENTS

Mountain Plains Museum Association conference panel “Contemporary Art in its Contexts: What is the Role of the Museum Now?”
Closing Luncheon
Saturday, September 15, 2018, 12 - 1:30 p.m.

Moderator, Leanne Gilbertson, PhD, Gallery Director and Asst. Professor of Art, MSU Billings,
Artists: Bently Spang, (Northern Cheyenne) Wendy Red Star (Crow), Patrick Zentz, Tyson Middle
A moderated discussion about contemporary art and its relationship to placemaking and community building in the region. The work of each of these artists presents unique challenges to museum curators—how do public art installations, video and electronic works, multi-media dance performance, and graffiti art challenge and expand the role of the museum in today’s cultural landscape? The innovative and challenging works of these four artists intersects, recasts, and confronts many of the traditional roles of our regional cultural institutions. How might the museums of today accommodate the flow of relevant new ideas that fall outside of conventional norms mediated by the art market?

Western Heritage Center High Noon Lecture
"The Victims of the Third Degree: Billings' Pre-Sedition Climate"
September 20, 2018, noon
Western Heritage Center
2822 Montana Ave, Billings, MT
Sponsored by: Dave & Lynda Ballard

“On the evening of November 9, 1917, Billings’ newly formed Third Degree Committee accused three citizens of pro-German sympathies. They forced the resignation of a city council member, a state renowned architect, and required a south side butcher to restate his oath to the United States. None of these men had prior criminal charges or incidents in Billings, so how did these charges come about? In this presentation, we’ll analyze the events surrounding this night and look at how Billings was not immune to fears of German infiltration.”

Western Heritage Center Hoof-it with a Historian
"The Southsiders"
October 12, 2018, 10 a.m.
Western Heritage Center
2822 Montana Ave, Billings, MTExplore the rich history of the south side! On this tour, we’ll look at the remnants of Billings’ railroad beginnings, see the influence of the sugar beet factory and learn about the role of South Park in our community. This tour begins South Side Senior Center - 901 S. 30th Street. Call if you need directions.

Note: The South Side has been the home to many of Billing’s under-represented communities

Presentation and Conversation at Northcutt Steele Gallery at Montana State University Billings
October 18, 2018, 5-8 p.m.
Northcutt Steele Gallery, Montana State University Billings
Liberal Arts Building
1500 University Dr, Billings, MT

Betty Avila, Co-Director of Self Help Graphics, Los Angeles, will discuss the Dia de los Muertos: A Cultural Legacy, Past, Present, and Future exhibition. Betty Avila is a native Angelano whose work has centered on the intersection of arts and social justice, with particular focus on community building, public space, and youth empowerments. A moderated conversation with members of the local Hispanic community, arts leaders, and MSUB students will follow.
The presentation explores the mix of sacred indigenous tradition, Catholic influences, and pop culture in Day of the Dead imagery. Given recent popular attention to the celebration and regional debates regarding cultural appropriation, the evening offers a forum for campus and community to consider the celebration’s contemporary relevance for various audiences.

Dia de los Muertos: A Cultural Legacy, Past, Present, and Future Exhibition
Northcutt Steele Gallery at Montana State University
October 18 – November 15, 2018
Northcutt Steele Gallery, Montana State University Billings
Liberal Arts Building
1500 University Dr, Billings, MT

Leanne Gilbertson, PhD, Gallery Director and Asst. Professor of Art, MSU Billings, leanne.gilbertson@msubillings.edu

Originated at Self Help Graphics in Los Angeles, this exhibition brings historical contextualization to the celebration and offers a forum to consider regional debates regarding cultural appropriation.
The exhibition not only shares and contextualizes the cultural form of Día de los Muertos with the Billings community, but also introduces audiences to a successful community art and arts education project that has continued to evolve over 50 years in response to community needs and a changing climate related to diversity issues. SHG is a model community-based grassroots project that is noted for inspiring, training, and creating a supportive community for generations of Chicano artists. It continues to evolve as a community arts-based project offering innovative programming that links youth (including at risk youth) and adults with arts and culture and local artists and institutions.

About For Freedoms and the 50 States Initiative
For Freedoms was founded by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman in 2016 as a new organizational model that merges art, activism, politics, and education. The concept of the organization was inspired by Norman Rockwell’s interpretive painting of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, affirming the inalienable human rights of freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear ... For Freedoms seeks to rethink these freedoms in the 21st century, using art as a tool to engage in critical and complex ideas, enabling citizens to have a greater understanding of the American political system, and engender deeper civic participation.

Looking to artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Laurie Jo Reynolds, and Theaster Gates, we take our inspiration from artists who have blurred the lines between the world of art and civic life, and citizens who have boldly reshaped the societies in which they exist.

Building off of the existing artistic infrastructure in the United States, For Freedoms has developed a network of artists and institutional partners who will produce nationwide public art installations, exhibitions and local community dialogues in order to inject nuanced, artistic thinking into public discourse. Centered around the vital work of artists, we hope that these exhibitions and related projects will model how arts institutions can become civic forums for action and discussion of values, place, and patriotism.

ForFreedoms.org
For Freedoms on Facebook
For Freedoms on Twitter @for_freedoms
For Freedoms on Instagram @forfreedoms
Hashtags: #FF50 #weareforfreedoms #50stateinitiative #forfreedoms
"Fifty billboards: an art project hopes to provoke debate across America", by Nadja Sayej, The Guardian, July 9, 2018