Lecture Series

“…An Evening at JohnSommers /with/…” is a monthly online student-led academic lecture series hosted at the John Sommers Gallery within the University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts. This groundbreaking program of eleven internationally celebrated guest speakers in the arts and humanities brings our community into conversation with contemporary creative practices that span dance, composition, poetry, fine art, and critical theory.

This series is built out of the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to create safe academic spaces of exchange and culture while looking for new ways to think and grow together. This student-run virtual lecture series will enable us to invite internationally renowned scholars to share their time with, not only a broad, interdisciplinary, and expanded student and faculty audience, but with the greater community of Albuquerque, of New Mexico, – with anyone and from anywhere. Not only is this an unprecedented opportunity for the University of New Mexico and the College of Fine Arts to engage with the contemporary national and international creative world, it also allows the College of Fine Arts and all the creative and wonderful thinkers within our community to interact and show the diversity in the arts and beyond, that can be found in such an unrivaled place as New Mexico.

Join us for our next three speakers.

Faustin Linyekula, on February 11, 6 pm. Faustin Linyekula is a dancer, choreographer, director, and storyteller as he defines himself. He lives in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. He is the founder of the Studios Kabako (2001), a space dedicated to dance, visual theatre, music, and film, providing training programs, supporting research and creation, and fostering Congolese artists to tell their own stories.

Sarah Hennies, on March 18, 6 pm. Sarah Hennies is a composer based in upstate New York whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, love, intimacy, psychoacoustics, and percussion. She is primarily a composer of small chamber works, but is also active in improvisation, film, performance art, and dance.

Minerva Cuevas, on April 15, 6 pm. Minerva Cuevas is a conceptual artist, based in Mexico City,  whose research-based creative practice spans film, performance, installation, mural painting, and technology. Using the language of branding, advertising, and commerce, Cuevas illuminates issues caused by neoliberal policymaking including the exploitation of natural resources and food production, as well as climate change. She blends appropriation, humor, and hyperbole in the creation of unconventional projects that are always in deep conversations with the place and the people of the community in which her work will be developed and exhibited.

For more information