Join us for a public conversation with W. Michelle Harris and Amanda Chestnut, centered on Harris’s public art installation Nia Panes at Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Presented in an interview and discussion format, this talk brings together two practitioners whose work bridges art, history, and community memory.

In addition to "Nia Panes" Harris has produced several other public artworks that memorialize Rochester’s lesser-known African American history, giving form to the lives and legacies of local leaders and activists whose contributions have often gone under-recognized. "Nia Panes" reimagines the tradition of memorial stained glass to honor Anna Murray Douglass, Hester Jeffrey, and Austin Steward, foregrounding their lasting impact on abolition, suffrage, and community organizing in Rochester. Leading the conversation with Harris, Amanda Chestnut, co-founder of In This Moment, brings to the program their ground-breaking commitment to honor living elders and influential figures in the Black community. Together, the conversation explores how past AND present narratives are preserved, interpreted, and carried forward through art and storytelling.

About the Artist

W. Michelle Harris is a digital media artist who uses code as a medium for engaging discussions as a Black woman in American culture. Her work has been shown at such diverse venues as the ACM SIGGRAPH, World Maker Faire, and INST-INT, as well as regional venues like Visual Studies Workshop, Gallery 74, Baobab Cultural Center, Community Folk Art Center, Schwienfurth Memorial, and Squeaky Wheel. She has done live-mixed visuals for performances in collaboration with Juanita Suarez, fivebyfive, Dave Rivello, Reenah Golden, and (almost every Rochester Fringe) BIODANCE. She is an associate professor in the New Media Interactive Development program at Rochester Institute of Technology. Harris has a master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program of NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Amanda Chestnut is an artist, curator, and educator working in Rochester, NY. Their work focuses on representation and history—and in particular how the history of race and gender impact modern narratives. As an educator, Chestnut’s course history includes gallery management, nonprofit administration, and the history of Black art in America. Their curatorial project In This Moment has published 30 chapbooks in 5 years, distributing more than 40,000 free books about living Black luminaries in Rochester, NY. Most recently, their work African Americans/Civil Rights/Jesse Owens has exhibited at the Center for Book Arts in Manhattan, at La Galerie UQO at the University of Québec, and at the Archives of Ontario in Toronto. Chestnut is a multidisciplinary artist, with 30 years of studying photography and a lifetime of practicing book arts. @blk_amanda