Upcoming Events

2022-23 UI Obermann Humanities Symposium & International Programs Major Projects Award: Frequências: Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Cinema & the Black Diaspora

From March 30 to April 1, "Frequências: Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Cinema & the Black Diaspora" will feature filmmakers, translators, and film scholars from the Afro-Brazilian diaspora. Organized by Christopher Harris (Cinematic Arts) with partnership from Cristiane Lira (University of Georgia) and Brazilian filmmaker Janaína Oliveira, the symposium will feature the emerging wave of young Afro-Brazilian filmmakers, curators, programmers, and scholars whose art and scholarship have already had an impact on the international cinema.

Panel discussions and keynotes will take place at the Stanley Museum of Art, and some screenings will be at Iowa City FilmScene. Harris says the events "are aimed at the generation of new knowledge regarding the central question of how Black identity is figured in the new Afro-Brazilian cinema and how that resonates with Black cinema globally."

View schedule and speakers

Major sponsorship comes from the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, UI International Programs, the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization, and the Office of the Vice President for Research Arts and Humanities Initiative Program. Generous supporters include FilmScene, the UI Stanley Museum of Art, the UI Department of Cinematic Arts, and the UI Department of Spanish & Portuguese.

Contact: Erin Hackathorn 319-335-4034

Departments: Department of Cinematic Arts, Obermann Center, Office of the Vice President for Research, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, International Studies Program, International Programs, Center for Advancement, University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art

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Get the inside scoop from Iowa alumni who´ve made it big in Hollywood and are behind blockbusters such as the forthcoming Martin Scorsese series Devil in the White City as well as Hulu´s Castle Rock and Only Murders in the Building, HBO´s Girls, WGN America´s Manhattan, Amazon Prime´s Modern Love and AMC´s The Terror.

Join us for this special event, where you´ll hear from a panel of hitmaking screenwriters-including Iowa Writers´ Workshop alumni Vinnie Wilhelm (04MFA), Sarah Heyward (09MFA), Abigail Carney (20MFA), and Stephen Markley (15MFA).

We will provide appetizers and a hosted bar.

A $10 per person admission will support the Forevermore Scholarship, a need-based scholarship fund that helps give deserving high school students access to the University of Iowa.

Register here: https://foriowa.info/3YFftH3

Contact: Laurel Hall 319-467-3518

Departments: Center for Advancement

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Captain Pence Parsons (68BS), a retired member of the U.S. Navy, will lead both tours. Parsons flew the E-2 Hawkeye, which sits on the USS Midway today. 

Limited group tickets are available at $25 per person. Each ticket includes the tour and same-day admission to the museum. Please note: Tickets are nonrefundable after purchase. 

We hope you can join us!

Contact: Molly Torchia 319-467-3749

Departments: Center for Advancement

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Captain Pence Parsons (68BS), a retired member of the U.S. Navy, will lead both tours. Parsons flew the E-2 Hawkeye, which sits on the USS Midway today. 

Limited group tickets are available at $25 per person. Each ticket includes the tour and same-day admission to the museum. Please note: Tickets are nonrefundable after purchase. 

We hope you can join us!

Contact: Molly Torchia 319-467-3749

Departments: Center for Advancement

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"The Limbo Dance - From Backyard to Concert and Commercial Dance Stage"

Kieron Dwayne Sargeant´s artist talk will traverse the limbo dance from a wake/funerary dance to the concert and commercial dance stage looking at the adaptations and dramaturgical devices which afforded this change.

Kieron Dwayne Sargeant is a Trinidadian-born interdisciplinary artist, choreographer, dancer, and dance researcher who emerged from the African-Caribbean tradition. Sargeant received an MFA in dance performance and choreography from Florida State University and an MA in community dance practice from Ohio University. Over the past 20 years, he has been involved in documenting, assessing, and analyzing dance traditions of the Caribbean and establishing a canon of dance teachings and workshops, informed by his research, to popularize the ancestral survival of movement traditions between the Circum-Caribbean and Western Africa. His research focuses on the emerging field of African Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices. In particular, his work explores both regenerative and deconstructionist methodological approaches to engaging with African traditional Trinidadian dances for the commercial and contemporary dance world. His artistic practice includes translating sacred cultural and spiritual practices into artistic practices, resulting in dance works for the concert stage. He has performed works by Merce Cunningham, Charles O. Anderson, Tiffany Rhynard, and Milka Djordjevich,  among many others. In 2020 he founded and launched the Kieron Sargeant Dance and Dance Education Foundation of Trinidad and Tobago, a new platform for artists/dancers to nurture their creativity, inspire their environments, and empower themselves and the future of the arts industry in Trinidad and Tobago. From August 2021 to March 2022 Sargeant was a collaborator on a Mellon-funded project, Writing the Body, with Dr. Lara Cahill-Booth, an English professor at Miami Dade College. Sargeant was a visiting assistant professor of Contemporary Forms of the African Diaspora at the University of Iowa during the 2021-22 academic year.

If you are not able to attend in person, join us on the event live stream: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/98328257811 

Contact: Kimberly Datchuk 319-335-1727

Departments: University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Grant Wood Art Colony, Pentacrest Museums, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Department of Dance, Office of the Provost

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Celebrate Sandy Boyd´s more than 65 years of service to the University of Iowa. A memorial service, followed by a reception, will be held at Hancher Auditorium on Friday, April 7, beginning at 2 p.m.

The service will be live streamed on the UI Office of the President's website.

Contact: Sarah Gretter 319-467-3431

Departments: Center for Advancement

Join the long, rich, historical tradition of artists creating in our spaces.

Professional, aspiring, and amateur artists alike, make our museum your muse. The return of this popular program series welcomes guests into the Museum of Natural History's magical gallery spaces after-hours to work on sketching or writing projects with other campus and community artists.

Tell a friend, grab a notebook, and join us on the first Friday of each month. We'll provide a new inspo prompt for each session and will sometimes move about the Museum but we'll always start in the Hageboeck Hall of Birds (Bird Hall) on the third Floor of Macbride Hall. Join anytime between 6-8 p.m. and feel free to participate in a themed creation challenge or work on your own project with our exhibits as inspiration. We'll save the last 15-30 minutes of each session to share what we've been working on, connecting with others (optional, of course!).

Please note, the Museum is typically closed during this time, meaning the main entrance to Iowa Hall (atop the large staircase outside on the east side of Macbride Hall) will be closed and locked. All other building doors will be open, offering access to the Ground Floor of Macbride Hall. Bird Hall is located on the third floor of Macbride Hall and can be reached by stairs or by taking the elevator to the third floor and crossing the auditorium to the north side of the building. 

Contact: Carolina Kaufman 319-467-3130

Departments: Pentacrest Museums, Museum of Natural History, Division of Student Life, Student Engagement and Campus Programs, Department of Biology, University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, University Libraries, Department of English, Iowa Youth Writing Project

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Connect with fellow Hawkeyes and learn about the latest university happenings at this special event. You will hear from UI President Barbara Wilson and Lynette Marshall, president and CEO of the UI Center for Advancement.

We will provide appetizers and a hosted bar.

Register here: https://foriowa.info/3TczlQQ

Contact: Laurel Hall 319-467-3518

Departments: Center for Advancement

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In this class, participants will draw artworks in the museum's collection. Each session will focus on a different piece. The sessions will begin with an introduction to and discussion of the selected work. Participants will be encouraged to pursue their own visions and to take inspiration from the piece. Classes will be held Feb. 19, April 16, and May 21.

Pencils and sketchbooks/paper are the only art-making materials allowed in the galleries. The museum has golf pencils with erasers and clipboards for participants to use. Stools and benches are available in the galleries.

Robert Caputo, an Iowa City-based painter and sculptor, will lead the Drawing Salons.

The drawing salon is limited to 15 participants. Please reserve your spot at:

Feb. 19  https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/drawing-salon/2955186

April 16  https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/drawing-salon/2955190

May 21  https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/drawing-salon/2955191

Contact: Kimberly Datchuk 319-335-1727

Departments: University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Center for Advancement, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Division of Student Life, Office of the Provost

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WorldCanvass will launch the 2023 Provost´s Global Forum titled Festival of Contemporary Music from Israel with an intimate evening of music and conversation featuring the Meitar Ensemble and conductor Pierre-André Valade. 

WorldCanvass, hosted by Joan Kjaer and produced by International Programs, will blend live musical performances and contextual conversations with Meitar Ensemble members about the pieces to be performed during the festival and, more generally, about the contemporary music scene in Israel. 

The program will be held in the Recital Hall of the Voxman Music Building at the University of Iowa School of Music on Monday, April 17 from 5:30 - 7 p.m., with a pre-show reception in the outer lobby from 5 - 5:30 p.m. The reception and program are free and open to the public.  

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The first of nine free concerts, a Holocaust memorial concert, will be held on Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Voxman Music Building Concert Hall. This concert will feature the Meitar Ensemble.

WorldCanvass programs are recorded as audio podcasts and are available on Apple Podcast, the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), and the WorldCanvass website. This program is produced by UI International Programs in partnership with the UI School of Music. Audio production is provided by James Edel. 

Contact: Amy Green 319-335-1433

Departments: International Programs, Office of the Provost, Center for Advancement, International Studies Program, Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Division of Student Life, School of Music, Center for New Music, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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This is the first in a series of roundtable discussions between contemporary artists working in Africa and the United States funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Work by both Cole and Youmbi is featured prominently in Homecoming, the Stanley´s inaugural exhibition. Both Youmbi-a Cameroonian artist who lives and works in Douala-and Cole-an American sculptor, printer, and perceptual engineer-make works that respond to and build upon African art-making traditions while interrogating the colonial practices of art museums in the Western world.

If you are not able to attend in person, join us on the event live stream: https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/91459120969

Born in the Central African Republic in 1973, Hervé Youmbi lives and works in Douala. A passion for drawing and painting led him to attend the Institut de Formation Artistique of Mbalmayo, Cameroon, from 1993 to 1996. There he discovered his affinity for installation art. It was during a brief time at the École supérieure des arts décoratifs de Strasbourg (from 2010 to 2011) that he produced his first videos. As a result, his artistic process began to focus to a greater extent on both multimedia installation and work involving urban public spaces.

Youmbi often integrates traditional Cameroonian sculpture techniques within his installations, performances, and videos. This allows him to juxtapose indigenous African art traditions with contemporary global art conventions and to destabilize what is regarded as traditional versus that which is contemporary. Youmbi´s series "Visages des Masques/Faces of Masks" transgresses these established categories in several ways. By inserting mask forms that diverge from Western stereotypes of African art for this region of Cameroon into "traditional" Bamileke ritual performances, he embodies them with efficacy and authenticity. 

Notions of circulation run through Youmbi´s work. He challenges the status of art in traditional settings by placing sculptural works that have been ritually enacted in "the field" in Cameroon in art galleries and museums and making it possible for them to return to the "field" afterward if their new owners desire.

Hervé Youmbi is a founding member of Cercle Kapsiki, a collective group of five visual artists and scenographers from Douala founded in 1998 that also provides a cultural exchange space, the K Factory. This space serves as a resource center for young artists seeking to effect radical change in a country whose government shows no interest in arts education.

Willie Cole is a contemporary American sculptor, printer, and conceptual artist. His work combines references to everyday consumer objects and appropriation from African and African American imagery.

Cole is well-known for his Dada and Surrealist readymades, in which ordinary domestic and used objects-such as irons, ironing boards, hair dryers, bicycle parts, wooden matches, lawn jockeys, and other discarded appliances and hardware-are assembled and transformed. His long-running Mother and Child series of assemblages uses high-heeled shoes to convey the thematic figures. The forms created by the well-worn shoes recall traditional African sculpture.

The steam iron is another long-standing motif in Cole´s work. Using a variety of media, he imprints scorch marks made by an iron, showing their wide-ranging decorative potential while also referencing his African American heritage, using the marks to suggest the transport and branding of slaves, the domestic role of Black women, Ghanaian cloth design, and Yoruba gods.

Through the repetitive use of single objects in multiples, Cole´s assembled sculptures acquire a transcending and renewed metaphorical meaning. In addition to their Dada and Surrealist ties, the assemblages relate to various other art historical traditions such as Nouveau Réalisme (as in the work of artist Arman), postmodern eclecticism (Funk Art), and Pop Art.

Cole grew up in Newark, New Jersey. He attended the Boston University College of Fine Arts, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1976, and continued his studies at the Art Students League of New York from 1976 to 1979.   

Contact: Kimberly Datchuk 319-335-1727

Departments: University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Center for Advancement, Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, African American Studies Program, Division of Student Life, International Programs, Office of the Provost, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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Join us for a conversation between celebrated American art curator, Randall Griffey, visiting senior curator of modern and contemporary art, Diana Tuite, and University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art director, Lauren Lessing, as they discuss Alice Neel´s 1967 painting The Black Boys, on loan to the Stanley from the Tia Collection in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Griffey, who co-curated the blockbuster exhibition Alice Neel: People Come First, which opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021, will share insights into Neel´s work and career and discuss how this exhibition helped the Met widen and diversify its audience.

Randall Griffey is the new head curator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Prior to joining the Smithsonian in July 2022, he served for nine years as curator of modern and contemporary art for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to Alice Neel: People Come First, Griffey also recently curated Reckoning with Modernism, part of the expansive sesquicentennial exhibition Making The Met, 1870-2020 (2020). He organized, in close collaboration with the Cree artist Kent Monkman, the groundbreaking Great Hall Commission mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) (2019-2021), a monumental diptych addressing the history and issues of the colonization of North America that became part of the Met´s permanent collection. His efforts at the Met substantially increased the representation of women and artists of color in the collection through major reinstallations and reinterpretations of permanent collection galleries.

Previously, Griffey was a curator of American art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri (1999-2008) and curator at the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College (2008-2011), where he also served as head of curatorial affairs in 2012. He completed the Center for Curatorial Leadership program in 2016. He has spoken publicly on a wide range of topics and has written extensively for scholarly and museum publications. Currently, Griffey is a member of the advisory council of the Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation.

Contact: Kimberly Datchuk 319-335-1727

Departments: University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Center for Advancement, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Office of the Provost

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Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece. Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.

Write at the Stanley meets every fourth Sunday of the month. 

Jan. 22: David Duer

Born in Akron, Ohio, David Duer recently retired from teaching English language arts at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids. He's now a volunteer art docent at both the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art and the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. His work has been published in Ascent, English Journal, Exquisite Corpse, Little Village, Poetry, and elsewhere. A chapbook of his poetry, To Bread, was published by Coffee House Press.

Feb. 26: DK Nnuro  

DK Nnuro is a Ghanaian-born writer and a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has taught novel writing at the University of Iowa and is currently curator of special projects at the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa. His debut novel, What Napoleon Could Not Do, will be published on Feb. 7, 2023, by Riverhead Books. 

Space is limited, so we encourage you to reserve your spot at https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/write-at-the-stanley-a-generative-writing-workshop-with-iowa-city-poetry/2965305

March 26: Jennifer Colville

Jennifer Colville is the director of PorchLight Literary Arts Center, a community literary salon in Iowa City, and is the founding editor of Prompt Press, a project connecting visual artists, book artists, and writers. She leads creative writing workshops on "The Inventive Female Voice" and the intersection of writing and visual art. Elegies for Uncanny Girls, a collection of her short stories, was published in 2017 by Indiana University Press. She is a 2022-2023 Iowa Artist Fellow. 

Space is limited, so we encourage you to reserve your spot at https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/write-at-the-stanley-a-generative-writing-workshop-with-iowa-city-poetry/2965306

April 23: Lenore Maybaum

Lenore Maybaum earned her PhD in language, literacy, and culture at the University of Iowa with a focus on language acquisition, critical theory, and cultural studies. Her interests include French New Wave, film studies, the American novel, writing center theory and pedagogy, and Greek tragedy. She directs the Iowa City campus Writing Center and teaches Elements of Writing and Forms of Fiction: American Dreams. Her most recent publication-an essay exploring creative and maternal caregiving practices-can be found in "New Maternalisms": Tales of Motherwork (Dislodging the Unthinkable).

Space is limited, so we encourage you to reserve your spot at https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/write-at-the-stanley-a-generative-writing-workshop-with-iowa-city-poetry/2965307

May 28: Lisa Roberts

Lisa Roberts has taught literature and writing at universities in Hong Kong, Virginia, Las Vegas, and Nebraska. After moving to Iowa, she worked as assistant director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project. Today she is the director of Iowa City Poetry, a community arts organization that shares literary resources with writers of all ages, incomes, and identities. Her poems have appeared in Plainsongs, The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets, and Little Village. She has performed spoken-word poems at a variety of shows, including Was the Word, Voicebox, The Hook, and Poetry in Motion.

Space is limited, so we encourage you to reserve your spot at https://uiowa.doubleknot.com/event/write-at-the-stanley-a-generative-writing-workshop-with-iowa-city-poetry/2965309

Contact: Kimberly Datchuk 319-335-1727

Departments: University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Pentacrest Museums, Department of English, Iowa Youth Writing Project, Magid Center for Writing, Office of the Provost, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Classics

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Be a part of the premiere of a new one-act, immersive opera by composer Nathan Felix. Performers will move throughout the galleries, with different movements or pieces set around the audience. At some points, you may find yourself in the middle of the ensemble.

Nathan Felix (born 1981) is a Mexican American composer based in Brooklyn. His music has been premiered in Bulgaria, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Mongolia, and the United States, and his music has been featured on the BBC, MTV, and NPR. In 2016, Felix was featured on PBS and nominated for a Lonestar Emmy for work on his Six Piano Project in which he restored six pianos for a concert featuring two new pieces. After the concert, Felix donated the pianos to schools in lower-income neighborhoods in Austin. The Six Piano Project has since been commissioned in San Antonio (2016), Barcelona (2017), Melbourne (2017), and Houston (2019). In 2018, Felix won an award for his "Opera on a Bus" and the 2018 Tobin Prize for Artistic Excellence for which he premiered his "Headphone Opera," The War Bride, at Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival. In addition to his recent work with orchestras. Felix serves as director for the "street choir" From Those Who Follow the Echoes, who most recently premiered his "Opera on a Bus." In addition, Felix served as an official music ambassador for the United States in China and composed music for a series of PSAs for an international campaign by the Livestrong Foundation to raise cancer awareness in China and Mexico. In late 2014, Felix reformed his band The Noise Revival Orchestra for a tour in Asia highlighted by festival dates in Japan and Taiwan, where the group performed for crowds of 35,000 and 50,000.

Contact: Kimberly Datchuk 319-335-1727

Departments: University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Center for Advancement, School of Music, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Theatre Arts, Division of Student Life, Office of the Provost

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Calling all Hawkeyes! It´s time to nominate your favorite family for the 2023 University of Iowa Family Spirit Award.

This award recognizes a Hawkeye family-spanning at least three generations of University of Iowa graduates-that has substantially benefited from and continues to advocate for the UI, as well as contributes toward bettering the state of Iowa and its communities.

The recipients of this award will receive the ultimate University of Iowa experience during Family Weekend, Nov 10-11, 2023, including 20 tickets to the Iowa vs. Nevada football game.

Nominations are due Friday, April 28.

Submit your nomination today: https://www.foriowa.org/family-spirit/

Contact: Dusti Cermak 319-467-3729

Departments: Center for Advancement

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Help us celebrate the history and tradition of women´s athletics at the University of Iowa and how we support, engage and empower the next generation. The celebration will be held on the Carver-Hawkeye Arena floor and will include food stations, a cash bar, activities, and a silent auction.

Suggested dress: Black & Gold cocktail attire (similar to business casual wear). If it´s black or gold, even better!

The cost for the gala is $125 per person or $1,000 for a reserved table of 8.

Register here: https://foriowa.info/3yATc2M

Contact: Iowa Athletics Development 319-467-3410

Departments: Center for Advancement

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