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MLK’s Beloved Community and the DC Art Bank

This event explores how the art on the walls at the MLK Library might bring Dr. King's teachings to life.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. extolled the promise of the beloved community. As the result of a world committed to non-violence, the beloved community would be an integrated global society in which all citizens would share in prosperity; where justice and peace would reign; and where bigotry and prejudice would fall away. This tour and panel discussion in partnership with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities will explore how the art on the walls at the MLK Library might bring Dr. King's teachings to life.

About the Moderator

Melanee Harvey, PhD, Associate Professor & Coordinator of Art History, Howard University

Melanee C. Harvey is associate professor of art history in the Department of Art in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She earned a BA from Spelman College and pursued graduate study at Boston University where she received her MA and PhD in American Art and Architectural History. In addition to serving as coordinator for the art history area of study, she has served as programming chair for the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at Howard University since 2016. She has published on architectural iconography in African American art, Black Arts Movement artists, religious art of Black liberation theology and ecowomanist art practices. During the 2020-2021 academic year, Melanee was in residence as the Paul Mellon Guest Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. She is currently writing her first book entitled, Patterns of Permanence: African Methodist Episcopal Architecture and Visual Culture.  

Keynote Speakers

Jordan S. Potash

Jordan S. Potash, PhD, ATR-BC, REAT, LPCAT is a registered, board certified, and licensed art therapist and registered expressive arts therapist. He works with DC organizations focused on youth experiencing homelessness and grief. He is Associate Professor in the Art Therapy Graduate Program at The George Washington University, Editor of Art Therapy, and lectures globally. Jordan is primarily interested in the applications of art and art therapy in the service of community development, cross-cultural relationships, social change, and peace building.  

Lindsey D. Vance

Lindsey D. Vance, ATR-BC, LPC, is an interdisciplinary artist, art therapist, licensed professional counselor, arts advocate, arts administrator, and educator. As Manager of Arts Innovation for DC Public Schools, Vance develops and supports PK-12 Visual and Digital Media Arts Curriculum for DCPS teachers, concentrating on the role of trauma and social emotional learning in the classroom and on art within society and contemporary art movements. Vance also works as an adjunct professor at The George Washington University and Bowie State University, as well as a Grief Psychotherapist for the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing. Vance holds a master’s degree in art therapy with an emphasis in trauma counseling. 

About the Panelists

Carol A. Beane

Carol A. Beane is a wordsmith at heart; poetry is her constant. She taught Spanish language, Latin American/Caribbean literature, and Simultaneous Interpretation at Howard University. She has collaborated with Michael Platt and Renée Stout, among others, creating artists books and broadsides. Beane is represented in various collections, including: The Library of Congress, Rare Books and Special Collections; New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture; Yale University Art Museum; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. 

Imar Lyman [Hutchins]

Imar Lyman [Hutchins] is an autodidact artist based in Washington, DC. He works primarily in collage and printmaking. Lyman’s portraits combine vintage black magazines, hate mail and other historical documents as well as found objects, tissue paper and new materials. He imagines that people themselves are collages—amalgams of countless disparate fragments and inputs. He “remixes” his subjects in new and often “Afro-past-ist” ways, but always drawing from (or challenging) a historical notion. 

Eleisha Faith and Tonisha Hope McCorkle

DC-born, Hyattsville-raised twins Eleisha Faith & Tonisha Hope McCorkle (known collectively as “Hope & Faith ♡”) hold BFAs from NYU in Studio Art. Formerly enrolled in the Visual and Performing Arts program at the Jim Henson School of Arts, Media, and Communication, the two have been curating, studying, and creating art since they were 13. At 17, the twins lost their mother to the rare lung condition of Sarcoidosis. Since then, the two have used their art as a space of healing, creating immersive experiences that engage with loss, grief, and identity. Currently, the pair are expanding their practices individually and collectively in Baltimore, MD, at their artist residency with Creative Alliance. 

Curtis Woody

Curtis Woody is a mixed media collage painter, drawing inspiration from historical connection points that join individuals, families, generations, and communities. He has exhibited throughout the mid-Atlantic region and his works reside in DC Public Schools, the Maryland Transit system, Bowie State University, East River Jazz Fest Collection, Sandy Spring Museum, and other public and private collections. He has received grants and fellowships from Prince George’s Arts & Humanities Council, the Maryland State Arts Council, and Artomatic; and he has undertaken residencies at the Sandy Spring Museum and Forestville High School in Maryland. Woody has a degree in Commercial Arts from Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, VA. 

Helen Zughaib

Helen Zughaib was born in Beirut, Lebanon, living mostly in the Middle East and Europe before coming to the United States to earn her BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University.Her work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Lebanon. Her paintings are included in many private and public collections, including the White House, World Bank, Library of Congress, US Consulate General, Vancouver, Canada, American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, the Arab American National Museum in Detroit, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Barjeel Art Foundation Collection. Her work has been included in Art in Embassy State Department exhibitions abroad, including Brunei, Nicaragua, Mauritius, Iraq, Belgium, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sweden. Zughaib has served as Cultural Envoy to Palestine, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia with the State Department. The John F. Kennedy Center/REACH, in Washington, DC, has selected Helen for the 2021-2023 Inaugural Social Practice Residency.  Her paintings have been gifted to heads of state by President Obama and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.  

Images, L to R: Imar Lyman [Hutchins], Banna-Ka (Benjamin Banneker), 2019, Acrylic, serigraph and collage on canvas, 72 x 54 in.; Helen Zughaib, Out of the Box, 2018, Gouache on archival pigment print, 60 x 45 in.

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