Eric Gottesman teaches, organizes, writes, and makes artworks with other people that address nationalism, migration, structural violence, history, and intimate relations. He is a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a Creative Capital Artist, a Fulbright Fellow, a co-founder of For Freedoms, and he co-created the books Sudden Flowers (2014) and For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From Here? (2024). Teaching is integral to his practice, and he is a mentor in the Arab documentary photography program in Beirut, Lebanon and the 2024 W.W. Corcoran Visiting Professor in Community Engagement at George Washington University.
Join us for a conversation about art and civic engagement in the past and present, moderated by Eric Gottesman, cofounder of the artist-led organization For Freedoms. Author Jon Grinspan will share the history of the Wide Awakes, an anti-slavery youth movement that marched America from the 1860 election to civil war. Organizing uniformed, torch-bearing brigades with powerful visuals, texts, and songs, these Wide Awakes became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political operations in American history.
In January 2020, inspired by Grinspan’s scholarship, For Freedoms reactivated the Wide Awakes to encourage mobilization through art. Artist Helina Metaferia will discuss her interdisciplinary practice and involvement with the contemporary Wide Awakes movement. Through a hybrid of mediums, Metaferia’s work seeks to reconcile the complex contradictions of what it means to be an American.
Held in conjunction with the publication of For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From Here?
Join us for another discussion with For Freedoms on Saturday, October 5, at 2:00 p.m.
About the Presenters
Eric Gottesman. Courtesy of the artist.
Jon Grinspan serves as curator of political and military history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, focusing on the deep history of American democracy and how it speaks to contemporary politics. He is the award-winning author of The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy (2021), The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the 19th Century (2016), and most recently, Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War (2024). His writing frequently appears in the New York Times and other publications. Grinspan holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MA and PhD from the University of Virginia.
Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, assemblage, video, performance, and social engagement. Her work integrates archives, somatic studies, and dialogical practices, creating overlooked narratives that amplify BIPOC/femme bodies. Recent solo exhibitions and projects have been shown at Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco (2024 & 2017); Center for Book Arts, New York, NY (2024); RISD Art Museum (2022-2023); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2021-2022); New York University's The Gallatin Galleries (2021); Michigan State University's Scene Metrospace Gallery, East Lansing (2019). In 2023, Metaferia's work was included in the Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates. She received her MFA from Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
For Freedoms is an artist-led organization that centers art as a catalyst for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. Founded in 2016 by a coalition of artists including Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, Michelle Woo, and Wyatt Gallery, For Freedoms is dedicated to fostering an environment of listening, healing, and justice through a wide range of creative activations. For Freedoms works closely with a variety of artists, organizations, institutions, and brands to expand what participation in a democracy looks like and to reshape conversations about politics.