2021 Faculty Research Lecture

The 55th Annual Faculty Research Lecture was given by Professor Jennifer González on Tuesday, May 2, 2023 at the Music Recital Hall in the Performing Arts Complex.

Click the video below to watch Prof. González' lecture!

Event Flyer | Program 

Silent Speech, Migratory Gesture

Climate change, economic inequality and violence have caused over 280 million people to migrate from their country of origin in just the last few decades. This talk considers how the visual arts articulate the personal impact and the systemic conditions of this devastating human experience. In hauntingly poetic and pointedly activist works, contemporary artists explore the geopolitics of migration. Bodies become the surface for writing, gestures evolve into map making, language comes under erasure. Producing a kind of silent speech, artists track tensions of visibility and invisibility, displacement and transnational movement in the lives of everyday migrants.

This lecture draws from a larger research project exploring speech and silence in the history of art, with a special emphasis on the role of art as a form of political democracy.