Will Johnson is a Brown University PhD candidate in Music & Multimedia Composition. He takes part in several events in fall 2024 which follow in chronological order.
"Form Where Form Shall Not Hold: Grammar, Image, Text"
A lecture presented by the Mount Holyoke College Department of English
Thursday, October 10, 2024 4:45pm to 6:15pm
Dwight Hall, Room 101, Mount Holyoke College
Inspired by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson's concept of “plasticity”—the notion that blackness may be thought as that which is produced as interstitial to and generative of the givenness of form itself—the objective of this gathering is to reconsider dominant interpretative regimes that cohere around common modalities of representation when worked through blackness and black studies. Another way of thinking of this gathering is as a reconsideration of formalism in light of Jackson's concept of black plasticity.
This colloquium will gather three scholars to think about and across three genres of representation—image, text, sound—to explore the matter of form. What insights might black engagements with these forms yield for the endurance, exhaustion, or even integrity of these forms as we know them and/or as we've come to know through them? How might we consider what becomes of an image, a text, or a sound when blackened?
Event listing at Mount Holyoke website
Craft in the Real World
A Collaborative Program with Creative Counterpoints, Creative Writing Minor, and Brant Gallery
Thursday, October 17, 2024 5pm to 7pm
South Hall, 1st Floor, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA
Craft and its relationship with canon and tradition are undergoing redefinition in the arts. The transformation is propelled by other paradigm shifts in art and education, most notably the turn to equitable and culturally responsive teaching and socially engaged art and design. Craft in the Real World contributes to MassArt’s understanding of these changes and opportunities, and their roots in the relationship between craft and the world, and culture and identity.
Two of Will Johnson's pieces are a part of the exhibition on display from October 17 to November 14, 2024.
Event listing at the MassArt website
In Slavery's Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World
National Museum of African American History and Culture
1400 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC
An exhibition that will shift how we think about, talk about, and represent the history of slavery, race, and globalization and the continuing relevance of these histories to our world today. Will Johnson's sound piece is a part of this exhibition that opens on December 13, 2024 runs through June 8, 2025 at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. before eventually traveling to Brazil, South Africa, Senegal, Belgium and Liverpool.