The Scoop Archive

The Africana Center Art Gallery

Academic Year 2018-19

Valerie Imparato

Valerie Imparato

valeriepimparato.com
Instagram: Vp_visualart

Valerie Prosper Imparato is originally from Haiti but has lived all over the world.  Valerie’s aesthetic draws from the diverse cultural influences in her upbringing, with an emphasis on East-African and Caribbean art. 

Valerie’s art teeters on the balance between the ethereal and the earthly; the fantasy of the whimsical and the perspective of the realist. She hopes to make art that inspires dialogue on issues of faith, race, immigration, feminism, and the plight of the oppressed. 

Her most recent work is focused on the Black Woman and all of the identities folded within the intersectionality of blackness and womanhood.

Academic Year 2016 -17

Rhythms of the Diaspora Concert

Friday, February 24, 2017, 7:30 p.m.
Goddard Chapel, (5 The Green, Medford, MA 02155)

The 2nd Annual Rhythms of the Diaspora event will celebrate female composers and musicians of the African Diaspora. Performances by musicians from the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music and Tufts University. Light Refreshments will be served.

Sponsored by: Tufts Africana Center, Tufts Black Student Union, NEC Black Student Union and the Berklee Black Student Union

Download the Brochure

Save the Date: February 3, 2017

I Am Not Your Negro

A Magnolia Films Production directed by Raoul Peck
Film Screening and Discussion

"In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his new endeavor: the writing of his final book, Remember This House, recounting the lives and successive assassinations of his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Baldwin was not able to complete the book before his death, and the unfinished manuscript was entrusted to director Raoul Peck (Moloch Tropical, Murder in Pacot) by the writer's estate.

Built exclusively around Baldwin's words, Peck's I Am Not Your Negro delves into the complex legacy of three lives (and deaths) that permanently marked the American social and political landscape. Framing the unfinished work as a radical narration about race in America, Peck matches Baldwin's lyrical rhetoric with rich archival footage of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and connects these historical struggles for justice and equality to the present-day movements that have taken shape in response to the killings of young African-American men including Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, and Amir Brooks. Exploring what it means to be Black in America today, Peck reflects on the legacy of racial violence that still permeates the country."

Join the Africana Center for discussion following the film screening, more details to come.

Please RSVP

Black History Month 2017

Join us for a celebration of the African Diaspora through film screenings, discussions and concerts.

Download the Brochure

CSRD Sponsors the Boston Premiere of Birth of a Movement

Monday, January 30, 2017, Film Event at 6:30 p.m. at Somerville Theater, Davis Square
Discussion following film event | Africana Center Lounge

The Tufts CSRD Sponsors the Boston Premiere of Birth of a Movement: The Battle Against America's First Blockbuster, a Northern Light Production directed by Susan Gray and Bestor Cram

"Boston 1915. African-American newspaper editor and activist William Monroe Trotter wages a battle against D. W. Griffith's groundbreaking blockbuster The Birth of a Nation. A notoriously Ku Klux Klan-friendly reimagining of history, Griffith's motion picture unleashes a conflict that still rages today about race relations, representation, and the power of Hollywood." The film is followed by a panel discussion and public forum featuring Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Harvard University), Vincent Brown (Harvard University), Dolita Cathcart (Wheaton College), Robert Bellinger (Suffolk University), Dick Lehr, and Barbara Lewis (Trotter Institute at UMass Boston).

Join the CSRD and Africana Center for discussion following the film event.

RSVP to Danuta Forbes

A Tufts University Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium

Monday, January 23, 2017, 3:00 - 7:30 p.m., Breed Memorial Hall (51 Winthrop Street, Medford, MA)
Please feel free to attend parts, or stay for the entire program.

Each year, Tufts University hosts an annual celebration honoring the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For this year's celebration, the MLK planning team has lined up a series of panels and speakers who will explore the question, "Where do we go from here?" The day will begin with a panel of distinguished historians who will place our current moment in historical context through the exploration of African American and women's history, the African diaspora and collective resistance, the history of immigration and exclusion, European fascism, abolitionism, and movement building.

Featured panelist include: Greg Childs (Brandeis University), Vivek Bald (MIT), Ashley Farmer (Boston University), Elizabeth Foster (Tufts University), and Kerri Greenidge (Tufts University).

This panel will be followed by a panel of community organizers and activists who will discuss how this historical context informs their work at the local and national levels. We will conclude with dinner and a keynote lecture from Tufts alumna, Jennifer Bailey, A09, founding Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network who will discuss how we might build King's "beloved community" in the Trump Era.

More Information