The Carr Center presents CONVERGE DETROIT 2019 Beyond Space: Unbounded Theory and Practice
Converge Detroit: a day-long gathering of artists, thinkers, academics, and cultural workers that will provide a voice and a platform for new ideas and concepts in the arts. It is being developed by the Carr Center in response to the need for a nationally recognized and African American focused arts convening in Detroit.
Detroit – a predominantly black city by both numbers and association has long been a city under intense social stressors, and at the same time, a city undergoing monumental change. Converge Detroit is an artistic laboratory that focuses on the African American contribution, both in theory and practice, to the creative universe, with the ultimate goal of building a bridge that connects the nation to this city.
Converge Detroit is a place for sharing: peer-to-peer and mentor-to-mentee. It is an incubator, a site for exploration and critique. It is a playground and a stage.
Converge Detroit 2019 takes its theme, Beyond Space: Unbounded Theory and Practice, from the Carr Center Independent Scholars Program’s, exploration-through-exhibition, curated and led by Carr Center resident artist and mentor Carrie Mae Weems. The exhibition is the culminating effort of a 12-month mentorship and peer-to-peer guidance program featuring early career artists and scholars from around the country. Beyond Space, the exhibition, explores the multidimensionality of space and spaces: their spirit, architecture, technology, memory, transgression, and queering.
- How do we explore the etheric and liminal dimensions of space?
- How and when does space become a site for liberation or confinement?
- How do we work to re-center and redefine space?
- How do we confiscate space even from the margins?
Converge Detroit 2019, Beyond Space: Unbounded Theory and Practice, is informed by these questions and others, but contributors are encouraged to use the Converge Detroit platform as a testing and teaching site for the ideas that drive them.
If your interests lie at the intersection of the arts and black experience and if you are excited and inspired by the creative work and ideas of others then YOU should attend Converge Detroit.