Thanks to the work of current communications students, two Power Tree Quilts are now displayed at Íæż½ã½ã’s, in the library and the Center for Community Work and Learning. They are compilations of quilt squares created by Íæż½ã½ã’s community members at the (MAM) Power Tree Quilt event held this past fall on campus.
Students in COMM/CRST 4994, taught by Margret McCue-Enser, PhD, drafted and distributed promotional and event materials, planned and coordinated logistics, and staffed the event. The course, Rhetoric of Resistance: Place, Power, and Protest, examined work by Indigenous scholars and local activists who assert Indigenous ways of being, and in doing so, reveal and challenge dominant discourses about people and place.
The Million Artist Movement is a global vision art movement that believes in using art as an agent of change for Black and Brown artists. This event uses art as a form of rhetorical resistance against oppression of BIPOC. The Million Artist Movement Power Tree Quilt event was an opportunity to dismantle oppressive racial systems in our own community in a safe space, provide in-person healing in a place forged out of violence and Indigenous trauma, and to build an honest community and practice public engagement work.
These quilts reflect the role of engaged scholarship in the construction and transformation of our own Íæż½ã½ã culture. This patchwork of our community reflects the work all of us have to do to make this and all places just, equitable, and inclusive. These quilts are both a reflection of our culture and, in their making and viewing, an opportunity to continue to transform our culture.
This last fall’s course kicked off a multi-year collaboration between MAM and Íæż½ã½ã’s. We are excited about the work and learning ahead.
For more information about community-engaged learning, email service-learning@stkate.edu.
For more information about the course, contact Margret McCue-Enser, PhD, professor of Communication Studies, mamccueenser@stkate.edu.