Visiting Voices Series 2024

The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is pleased to announce its spring 2024 Visiting Voices Series event, Art & Disability, hosted by the Hurwitz Center. Five disability justice artist-educators working in K-16 institutions, communities, and museums explore issues, support strategies, and resources for art educators and learners in an interactive conversation facilitated by Dr. Pamela Harris Lawton, Florence Gaskins Harper Endowed Chair in Art Education and thought leader for the Hurwitz Center at MICA.

The purpose of Visiting Voices is to bring together artist-educators who are from marginalized communities and/or have expertise working with marginalized communities. This year’s topic centers on artists and learners who are disabled and seeks to provide the language and resources to assist artist educators teaching disabled learners in art settings. Hearing from artist-educator experts who are disabled and/or have experience teaching about how to work with disabled learners in art classroom spaces opens up a supportive environment for participants to ask questions and find resources to help them to be more effective teachers and advocates for disabled art learners.

Register here for this online event. 

The panelists for this program are:
Rebecca Alberts (she/her) Director of the Visual Arts Department in the Upper School at The Lab School of Washington, a premier k-12 school for students with language-based learning differences; the premise of the school is to both teach academics through the arts as well as focus students on the importance of studio courses. Inspired by her students and different theorists, Rebecca has examined, written and presented on a broad array of how the arts interconnect to the educative process.

Dr. Kelly M. Gross (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Art and Design Education at Northern Illinois University. She has published research on art education and inclusion in book chapters and research journals. Kelly is currently working on several research projects that focus on the intersection of art education, special education, and disability studies.

Michelle Renee Hoppe (she/they) has taught special education in NYC, and her outcomes won court cases against the NYC Department of Education. She was a NYC Teaching Fellow in special education and studied teaching at City College of New York. Michelle guest lectures on issues of disability justice and harm reduction and lives with multiple neurodivergences and chronic illness.

Dr. Mira Kallio-Tavin (she/her) is Distinguished Professor of Art in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia. Her research focuses on critical artistic and arts-based research in questions of disability studies, decolonialism, immigration, nonhuman agency, and critical animal studies. She is Associate Editor of Studies in Art Education and the founder of the International Disability Studies, Arts and Education (iDSAE) network.

Jennifer White-Johnson (she/her) is a disabled and Neurodivergent Afro-Latina art activist and design educator whose visual work aims to uplift disability justice narratives in design. As an artist-educator with Graves disease and ADHD, Jen uses photography, zines, and collage art to explore the intersection of content and caregiving, emphasizing redesigning ableist visual culture.

Dr. Pamela Harris Lawton (she/her), panel facilitator.

About MICA
Acknowledged nationally as a premier leader in art and design education, the Maryland Institute College of Art is deliberately cultivating a new generation of artist—one that is capable of seamlessly integrating innovation, entrepreneurship and creative citizenship with contemporary approaches to art, design and media.

MICA is redefining the role of the artists and designers as creative, solutions-oriented makers and thinkers who will drive social, cultural, and economic advancement for our future. As the oldest continuously degree-granting college of art and design in the nation, MICA is located in Baltimore, deeply connected to the community. It is a leading contributor to the creative economy regionally and a top producer of nationally and internationally recognized professional artists and designers.