Josie Hodson will discuss Black contemporary artists exploring the space of Black sleep, subverting its biopolitical regulation and the lethal expectation of perpetual industry. Artists such as Jennifer Packer, Noah Davis, and House/Full of Blackwomen show us the ways that visual representations of Black sleep can constitute quiet gestures of fugitivity and interiority in a culture that celebrates endurance over rest. Hodson will discuss projects bound by an ethos of collectivity, arguing that the project of transforming the social and political conditions that reproduce Black sleeplessness cannot be pursued in isolation.
 
Josie Roland Hodson is a PhD student in History of Art and African American Studies at Yale University, where her interdisciplinary research focuses on Black diaspora aesthetics and notions of Black sociality. Previously, she has worked at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Most recently, her article "Rest Notes: On Black Sleep Aesthetics” appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of October. 

Members of the Black School Design Studio, Joseph Cuillier and Kacy George, will discuss their design process and their work in creating the identity and website for the Athenaeum.

The Black School: Studio is an art and design firm that trains youth in paid apprenticeships to execute client work for third party organizations with the long-term intention of self-sustaining TBS programing. Their initial host and client was the Bronx Museum of Art’s anti-gun violence program, with whom they are returning for a second year. This engagement offers the opportunity to provide professional artistic training and paid work to TBS Alumni and selected youth of the community the museum serves in exchange for quality, community center graphic design services.

Joseph Cuillier (b. 1988, New Orleans, LA) is a multidisciplinary artist who explores abstraction as technology, language in space, and the history of Black radical pedagogies through social practice, installation, textile art, and design. Cuillier's installations use fashion and architecture to render bodies in space and bodies in action in an attempt to bridge gaps between living and form. Currently based in Harlem, NYC where he achieved an MFA from Pratt Institute and is currently a faculty member at Parsons and Pratt. Cuillier's work has been exhibited, collected, and presented at New Museum, MoMA Library, Bauhaus Dessau, Bronx Museum of Art, Wallach Gallery at Columbia University, Schafler Gallery at Pratt Institute, among others. Cuillier has been an artist-in-residence/fellow at Sweet Water Foundation courtesy of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Ideas City NOLA, Antenna, New Museum, The Laundromat Project, and A Blade of Grass.

Kacy George believes that data and a clear voice supplements effective communication. He leverages his aptitude for creative thinking, software learning, and client objectives to present fruitful solutions. George has years of experience providing quality design, marketing, and administrative support in a variety of professional settings and has worked at organizations such as Whitney Museum of American Art, Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, Nova XR Media, The Laundromat Project, The City College of New York, and The Black School.