SUSPENDED: Guided Tour: Explore the Ackland's Collection
2020-03-15 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-19 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-20 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-21 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-22 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-25 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-27 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-28 13:30 - 14:00 (America/New_York) and 8 more dates | Ackland Art Museum, 101 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States
The Ackland Art Museum has suspended this program until further notice as part of our response to the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 and based on recommendations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Any additional updates will be posted on the Museum’s website.
Meet in the lobby for a 30-minute, guided tour of the Ackland Art Museum’s collection.
No reservation needed.

SUSPENDED: Guided Tour: Special Exhibitions
2020-03-18 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-03-26 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-04-03 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-04-08 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-04-09 13:30 - 14:00, 2020-04-10 13:30 - 14:00 | Ackland Art Museum, 101 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States
The Ackland Art Museum has suspended this program until further notice as part of our response to the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 and based on recommendations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Any additional updates will be posted on the Museum’s website.
Meet in the lobby for a 30-minute, guided tour exploring highlights of our current special exhibitions Yayoi Kusama: Open the Shape Called Love and Toriawase: A Special Installation of Modern Japanese Art and Ceramics.
No reservation needed.

POSTPONED: Art for Lunch: Dr. Jessica A. Boon
2020-03-19 12:30 - 13:30 | Ackland Art Museum, 101 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States
The Ackland Art Museum has postponed this program as part of our response to the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 and based on recommendations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Any additional updates will be posted on the Museum’s website.
Join us for an interview-style talk with the Ackland’s Elizabeth Manekin and professor Jessica A. Boon (Religious Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill) to hear how her classes “Mary in the Christian Tradition” and “Medieval and Renaissance Christian Cultures” use objects in the Ackland’s collection.
Bring a bag lunch — and questions of your own — for this lively, conversational program.

Virtual Art for Lunch: Dr. Jerma A. Jackson
2020-04-15 12:30 - 13:30 | Zoom (Link Provided with Ticket), United States
Missed it? Watch the recording here.
Featuring Jerma A. Jackson (UNC History) and Elizabeth Manekin (Ackland Head of University Programs and Academic Projects)
Join us for a virtual version of Art for Lunch, our interview-style talk with the Ackland’s Elizabeth Manekin and a UNC faculty member whose classes engage with the Museum’s collection. This week, professor Jerma Jackson joins Elizabeth to discuss how her class “African American History Since 1865” uses objects in the Ackland’s collection.
Bring your lunch–and questions of your own–for this lively, conversational program.

POSTPONED: Talk: "Afropessimism" by Frank B. Wilderson III
2020-04-15 17:30 | Ackland Art Museum, 101 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States
The Ackland Art Museum has postponed this program as part of our response to the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 and based on recommendations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Any additional updates will be posted on the Museum’s website.

With the narrative drive of a captivating novel, and the intellectual rigor of critical theory at its best, Afropessimism illustrates how Black death, both real and symbolic, is necessary for the material and psychic life of the Human species—and not just White people. Few writers have the courage to set fire to the world while soaked in kerosene. Frank B. Wilderson III is one of them. Here is the match. Some readers will experience Afropessimism as a high wire act between rage and paranoia. Others will welcome it as a breath of sanity.
Presented in connection with ART& Intergalactic Soul: Project LHAXX. Sponsored by the Carolina Seminar for Afrofuturism, Black Optimism, and Afropessimism and the Ackland Art Museum.

Virtual Art for Lunch: Michelle Robinson
2020-04-29 12:30 - 13:15 | Zoom (Link Provided with Ticket), United States
Featuring Michelle Robinson (UNC American Studies) and Elizabeth Manekin (Ackland Head of University Programs and Academic Projects)
Join us for a virtual version of Art for Lunch, our interview-style talk with the Ackland’s Elizabeth Manekin and a UNC faculty member whose classes engage with the Museum’s collection. This week, associate professor of American Studies Michelle Robinson joins us to discuss how her class “The Emergence of American Culture” uses objects in the Ackland’s collection to ask how artists help shape our conception of American cultural icons.
Bring your lunch–and questions of your own–for this lively, conversational program.
Free, register below.
https://unc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bwC72pOkR1y057fM-KRtmw

Artist Conversation with Nelson Morales
2020-10-09 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom (Link Provided with Ticket), United States
This program has passed, but a recording of the conversation can be viewed below or on our YouTube channel.
A free public conversation with photographer Nelson Morales, who will have select photographs from his series Musas Muxe on view at the Ackland. The photographs explore the everyday life of muxes—people who identify as a third gender—of the Oaxaca state of Mexico.
Nelson will be joined by Allen Blevins, collector of Morales’ work and lender of several to the Ackland, and Lauren Turner, the Ackland’s Assistant Curator for the Collection.
Artist Conversation with Nelson Morales has been supported in part by Laughing Gull Foundation.

NEA Big Read at the Ackland: Full List of Programs
2020-10-11 - 2020-12-04 | Zoom (Link Provided with Ticket), United States
An Arts Endowment initiative in partnership with Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. The Ackland is one of 84 nonprofit organizations selected to receive an NEA Big Read grant to support a community reading program.
NEA Big Read at the Ackland will focus on Advice from the Lights by author Stephanie Burt. Events reflecting LGBTQ+ lives and experiences — including a keynote conversation with the author, a series of book discussions, and Drag Storytime for children — will take place virtually on ackland.org from Oct. 11 – Dec. 4. The NEA Big Read at the Ackland has been organized in partnership with the Chapel Hill Public Library and Carolina Public Humanities at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The programming will kick off with a free conversational program with the author Stephanie Burt in conversation with Jacob Lau (Women’s and Gender Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill) on Wednesday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. Following the kick-off event, the Ackland and its partners will host six book discussions of Burt’s Advice from the Lights with discussion facilitators from our community and three Drag Storytimes featuring local performers. The NEA Big Read at the Ackland is presented in connection with an ongoing installation of art by LGBTQ artists at the Ackland and several related programs, including a “Queer Cinema” virtual film series and artist talks.

NEA Big Read Events at the Ackland

OPENING EVENT
Wednesday, October 21, 2020 | 7:30 p.m. EST
Virtual Kick-Off Event with Author Stephanie Burt
In conversation with Jacob Lau
Registration required at ackland.org

BOOK DISCUSSIONS
Virtual Book Discussions | October through December
Free and includes copy of Advice from the Lights
Registration limited and required at ackland.org
Friday, October 23 | 3:30-5 p.m. EST
Thursday, November 5 | 7-8:30 p.m. EST
Friday, November 6 | 3:30-5 p.m. EST
Thursday, December 3 | 7-8:30 p.m. EST
Friday, December 4 | 3:30-5 p.m. EST

DRAG STORYTIMES
Sundays in October: 11, 18, 25 | 2:30 p.m. EST
Virtual story time with local drag performers
Free; Registration required at ackland.org.
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

Ackland Film Forum: "Queer Genius" Watch Party & Panel
2020-10-13 19:00 - 22:00 | Ackland Art Museum, 101 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States
This fall, in collaboration with the Film Studies Programs in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Ackland Film Forum presents an all virtual series on Queer Cinema. View the selected films on your own or join us for a watch party with the filmmaker. Watch parties will be followed by a live post-film panel discussion with the filmmaker and area scholars.
The first film in the series, Queer Genius, explores the remarkable lives of five queer female artists: Barbara Hammer, Eileen Myles, Black Quantum Futurism, Moor Mother, and Dynasty Handbag / Jibz Cameron. Queer Genius will be available to stream for Ackland Film Forum audiences October 9-15, 2020, with a watch party and panel on Tuesday, October 13.
October 13, 2020 | Queer Genius Watch Party and Panel
7 p.m.
Watch Queer Genius along with filmmaker Chet Pancake and share your thoughts and questions for the filmmaker on Twitter. #AcklandFilmForum
9 p.m.
Following the watch party, join Chet Pancake, film scholars Franklin D. Cason Jr. (North Carolina State University) and Sarah Keller (University of Massachusetts Boston), and special guest Florrie Burke for a virtual post-film discussion. The panel will be moderated by Martin Louis Johnson (UNC-Chapel Hill).
Links to both the streaming film and panel are provided with registration. Register below.
—
About the Panelists:
Chet H. Pancake is an award-winning filmmaker and sound artist. Chet’s work has been presented nationally and internationally in a wide variety of venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, Royal Ontario Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Academy of Fine Arts Prague and Big Screen Plaza, Herald Square NYC. Pancake’s awards include the Paul Robeson Independent Media Award, Jack Spadaro Documentary Award, Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award, the Silver Chris, and Edes Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage “No Idea Too Ridiculous” grant. Chet’s films have been broadcast in the U.S.A. and Great Britain (Sundance Channel, PBS, FreeSpeech TV, CommunityChannelUK) and are distributed by Bullfrog Films and the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. Sound art releases can be found on Ehse Records and Recorded in Baltimore. Pancake completed an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2012. Chet is currently a member of the Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia, PA.. Pancake was recently commissioned by Goldsmiths at University of London to provide creative work for “Citizen Sense”, a 1.5M (EUR) multi-year project directed by Dr. Jennifer Gabrys.
Dr. Franklin D. Cason Jr. is a filmmaker and film scholar, who has taught courses in film theory, history, aesthetics, criticism, and analysis. His research interests have been primarily concerned with film, modern visual culture, and media studies. As such, his writing and artistic practice reaches across the disciplines of art history, film studies, digital multimedia, graphic novels, philosophy, sociology, literature, musicology, aesthetic theory, visual studies, and historical poetics. His most recent essay, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasticity: Some Takes on William Greaves,” co-authored with Tsitsi Jaji, was recently published in Cultural Studies (28:4, 2014), in a special issue on Theorizing Production, edited by John Jackson. Currently, he is at work on an intellectual biographical documentary on African American Philosopher Alain Locke, and completing a book on the institutional context of the politics and aesthetics of African American films.
Dr. Sarah Keller is Associate Professor of English and Director of Cinema Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston. She has lectured and published extensively on women and film history and aesthetics. Her book Maya Deren: Incomplete Control examines the role of unfinished work through Maya Deren oeuvre (Columbia University Press, 2014), and her book Anxious Cinephilia was published in 2020 by Columbia University Press. Her current project, Barbara Hammer: Pushing Out of the Frame, is a study of the career of visual artist and experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer for Wayne State University Press’s Queer Screens Series, edited by David Gerstner.
Dr. Martin L. Johnson is assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His first book, Main Street Movies: The History of Local Film in the United States, was published by Indiana University Press in 2018. He is currently working on two projects—a history of advertising film in the U.S., and a history of early (pre-1923) educational cinema.

Ackland Film Forum is sponsored in part by the Laughing Gull Foundation.

NEA Big Read at the Ackland: Keynote Conversation with Author Stephanie Burt
2020-10-21 19:30 - 20:30 | Zoom (Link Provided with Ticket), United States
NEA Big Read at the Ackland will focus on Advice from the Lights by author Stephanie Burt. Events reflecting LGBTQ+ lives and experiences — including a keynote conversation with the author, a series of book discussions, and Drag Storytime for children will take place virtually on ackland.org from Oct.11 – Dec. 4.
Join the Ackland for the NEA Big Read Kickoff event – an evening conversation with author Stephanie Burt and Dr. Jacob Lau, Women’s and Gender Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill.
Stephanie Burt is the author of Advice from the Lights and a Professor of English at Harvard University.
[From Greywolf Press] Advice from the Lights is a part nostalgia, part confusion, and part an ongoing wondering: How do any of us achieve adulthood? And why would we want to, if we had the choice?
Free.
Registration is required. Click here to register.
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
