Amherst, Massachusetts

Playdate with the Quantum Soup Surfer: Exploring the Art of JooYoung Choi

April 17, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | Location: Mead Art Museum | Organizer: Mead Art Museum; Jones Library

The all-ages “Playdate with the Quantum Soup Surfer” will immerse visitors in the work of artist JooYoung Choi, on view in a solo exhibition, Adventures of the Quantum Soup Surfer. Choi (b. 1982 Seoul, South Korea) documents the interconnecting narratives of a fictional land called the Cosmic Womb and explores themes such as anti-racism, gender inclusivity, trans-racial adoptee rights, post-traumatic growth, and spirituality rooted in social justice. Playdate participants will be invited to choose their own adventure through a range of drop-in and on-the-hour workshops, including plushie-making, story time, dress up, illustrator conversation, fanfic writing, and more. These multi-modal activities will encourage imagination in the galleries, considering how storytelling, crafting, and art can bring complex and multifaceted identities, family histories, and geographies to life. The event aims to provide a space of reflection on Choi’s artwork and on how art-making can serve as a roadmap to help us all—especially children—navigate the intense experiences that many communities are facing today.
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Chicago, Illinois

A New Public Imaginary for the Calumet River

Date & Time TBD | Location: Calumet Riverfront between 96th Street & 100th Street | Organizers: Calumet Heritage Partnership; Southeast Side Environmental Task Force; Friends of the Chicago River; Blue Marble

The Calumet Heritage Partnership and the Calumet River Access Team invite community members to “A New Public Imaginary for the Calumet River”—a public event at the Calumet Riverfront to build a vision for the waterway’s future. The Calumet River has long been cut off from the public, a condition shaped by economic shifts that reshaped the Southeast Side, discarding the social contract that once tied local industry to community well-being. The Calumet River Access Team seeks to challenge the historically industrial use of the river by creating public access. Through temporary installations and tactile interventions, this event will pilot the site as public space and help the public to reconcile its histories, form alternative meanings, and ignite new social activities and relationships with the Calumet River.
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Evanston, Illinois

Beyond the Redline: Fair Housing Exhibition and Walking Tour

April 25 | Location: TBD | Organizers: Open Communities

Organized by Open Communities, “Beyond the Redline” will take the form of an exhibition and walking tour about housing discrimination in Evanston and areas throughout Chicago’s northern suburbs. The housing stories and histories shared will be a call to action to report housing discrimination as a matter of civil rights, and to advocate for the creation and preservation of diverse and welcoming communities. This event will offer in-person and self-guided walking tour options, and will feature individual stories of precarious housing and housing discrimination in Evanston. “Beyond the Redline” will demonstrate the ways in which community awareness and engagement is necessary to guarantee the right to fair housing.
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Lawrence, Kansas

The Uninvited Guest: An Adaptation of a Maasai Folktale

May 1, 10:30–11:30 a.m. and 4:30–5:30 p.m.; May 2, 10:30–11:30 a.m. | Location: Lawrence Public Library | Organizer: Department of Theatre & Dance, University of Kansas

Adapted from a Maasai folktale, “The Uninvited Guest” will be staged as a 30-minute interactive, family-friendly performance about home, hospitality, and what happens when an unseen “guest” disrupts a community. The performance seeks to create accessible and joyful exposures to cross-cultural narratives, especially for children. Following the performance, a hands-on craft workshop emphasizing the play’s themes will be offered. The play will serve as a comedic lesson in perception, interpretation, and questioning the spaces between what we hear and what is true.

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Kansas City, Missouri

Pigment and Politics: A Workshop and Exploration of Luis Quintanilla’s Murals

Date & Time TBD | Location: Haag Hall, University of Missouri-Kansas City | Organizers: Center for Digital and Public Humanities at University of Missouri-Kansas City; Lincoln College Preparatory Academy; St. Teresa’s Academy

The University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) will hold events focused on the history and craftsmanship of paintmaking. These will take place at Haag Hall at UMKC with two Kansas City high schools as partnering institutions. Haag Hall houses frescoes painted by Luis Quintanilla (1893-1978), a Spanish artist forced to live in exile in the United States under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. This space will provide participants with an immersive opportunity to learn about art and to experiment with the craft of paintmaking. Ultimately giving students the chance to create their own artworks with paints they have produced, this event seeks to instill a deeper understanding of paintmaking, artistic expression, and cross-cultural dialogue.

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Kansas City, Missouri

Routes of Resistance: Black & Indigenous Histories of Kansas City

April 25, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. | Location: Black Archives of Mid-America | Organizer: University of Missouri-Kansas City; Black Archives of Mid-America; Mutual Musicians Foundation International; Clay County African American Legacy, Inc.; Banneker School Foundation, Inc.; Western University Association of the AME Church; Wyandot Nation of Kansas, Inc.; Wornall-Majors House Museums; Jackson County Parks & Recreation

Kansas City Monuments Coalition will host two bus tours that will explore the effects of border creation and cross-border collaboration in the uniquely situated Kansas City Metro Area. As a city that spans two states, the tours will provide introductions to these ideas through public history programming that highlights the history of Black Education and Indigenous histories in Kansas City. Though there are two bus tours with two themes, each place-based, migratory tour will stress how different communities struggled to defy state-imposed borders and define their own space.

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Baltimore, Maryland

Between the Lines: Memory, Erasure & Reimagining Baltimore Through Chicory Magazine

Date & Time TBD | Location: TBD | Organizers: Chicory Revitalization Project; Enoch Pratt Free Library (tentative); City of Baltimore Parks and Recreation for Druid Hill Park (tentative)

This immersive humanities workshop will invite Baltimore residents of all ages to explore the legacy of Chicory, the city’s longest-running community literary magazine (1966–1983), created through the Enoch Pratt Free Library and the War on Poverty’s Community Action Program. Through guided dialogue, readings, and hands-on creative activities—such as blackout poetry, collaborative mapping, and cover art making—participants will examine what is remembered, erased, and reimagined in Baltimore’s past and present. Using archival Chicory texts, attendees will connect historic community voices to contemporary issues including displacement, migration, climate change, queerness, and technology. Designed and facilitated by members of the Chicory Revitalization Project, “Between the Lines: Memory, Erasure & Reimagining Baltimore Through Chicory Magazine” will center learning through making, collective memory, and shared imagination.
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Baltimore, Maryland

I’m Gonna Let it Shine: Praise, Power, and Protest in Black Musical Traditions

April 26, 3 p.m. | Location: St. James Episcopal Church | Organizers: Curating and Archiving Black Baltimore (CABB—Sheridan Libraries and the Billie Holiday Center for Liberation Arts at Johns Hopkins University); St. James Episcopal Church; Union Baptist Church; Metropolitan United Methodist Church

Music in the Black church is a means of worship—and much more. For centuries, it has also communicated messages of hope, sorrow, pride, and freedom. Based on archival research at three historic African American churches in West Baltimore—Union Baptist, Metropolitan United Methodist, and St. James Episcopal—”I’m Gonna Let It Shine” will bring together a multi-generational, inter-denominational, and multi-racial audience for a shared, joyous exploration of Baltimore musical heritage. Illuminating and celebrating the beautiful musical histories of each church and their common grounds, while also demonstrating the significant impact that Black sacred music has had on many secular genres, this free, public concert will explore the meanings, new and old, that these traditions have for us today—part of the collective musical heritage of all Americans.
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Prince George’s County, Maryland

And Still I Rise: A Black Feminist Cake Picnic

May 2 | Location: TBD | Organizers: Jasmine Daria Cannon & Orilonise Yarborough

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to eat carrot cake with Toni Morrison? Wonder no more! “And Still I Rise: A Black Feminist Cake Picnic” will take shape as a delicious public history activation centered on Black women’s histories, literary traditions, and culinary confections. Through cakes, candies, and other sweet treats, Black women’s histories will be highlighted across our collective story. Black women’s food voices have been undoubtedly loud in our lexicon, but historically silenced in our archives. Using storytelling, intergenerational connection, and shared sweetness, “And Still I Rise” will create an accessible and enjoyable public history intervention.
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Asbury Park, New Jersey

Repair and Repast Cafe

April 18, 5–9 p.m.; April 25 (tentative) | Location: Asbury Park Book Co-op | Organizers: Asbury Park Book Co-op

At the “Repair and Repast Cafe,” community members will be invited to take part in a shared meal and learn to sew and mend textiles. Experienced sewists will be on hand to teach machine sewing, hand sewing, and darning. The beauty of repaired textiles and the beauty of practical handwork will be the highlight of this gathering. All materials and instruction will be provided—participants merely need to bring their worn and torn items. This event aims to serve people who do not normally have access to a sewing machine or do not know anyone who sews, demystify sewing, and teach a skill that can unleash creativity while also being cost-saving, practical, and environmentally friendly.
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Princeton, New Jersey

Between Lines and Stanzas: Ways of Being Human with Poetry

Date & Time TBD | Location: TBD | Organizers: Princeton Public Library; Public Humanities Initiative at the Princeton Public Library; Princeton University Humanities Council; Princeton French Film Festival

The Princeton Public Library’s Public Humanities Initiative and its partners at Princeton University and in the town of Princeton, New Jersey will present a slate of events in celebration of National Poetry Month. “Between Lines and Stanzas: Ways of Being Human with Poetry” invites students, faculty, poets, and community members to read, discuss, and create poetry together. Events, including Princeton Poetry Walks and the interactive installation “Drop Us a Line,” will offer creative interventions into how participants think about and experience poetry. In conjunction with a community-wide Poetry Festival throughout the month of April, “Between Lines and Stanzas” will welcome the Princeton community to experience the ways poetry lives in and around us.
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ancestral Wisdom for a Weary World: Healing Through Heritage

April 25, Time TBD | Location: Cherry Street Pier | Organizers: DiasporaDNA Story Center

“Ancestral Wisdom for a Weary World” will activate the Montgomery Collection’s 5,000+ artifacts of Black diasporic and Pan-African histories through an interactive audio-ritual workshop in Philadelphia. Across multiple contexts, attendees will have the chance to explore an archive of narrative vignettes and respond by sharing personal stories in a supportive space, recording insights, ancestral lessons, and encouragement. This trauma-informed, sensory experience centers Black brilliance and diasporic voices, equipping 50–75 in-person participants (and 100+ virtual attendees) with accessible tools for healing and resilience.
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Washington, DC

The State of D.C.: An Activist Graffiti Party

Date & Time TBD | Location: TBD | Organizers: Matthew Pavesich & Leslie Tellería

“The State of D.C.” will combine art, music, and local advocacy to consider what kinds of political action can be driven inside the lines of the D.C. border. Foregrounding community participation and featuring local artists and D.J.s, this “activist graffiti party” invites guests to explore the role art plays in shaping local culture and politics, as well as the power of our own voices when we join the action. Attendees will experience modes of artwork that creatively reconfigure and repurpose the D.C. flag, while also participating in a workshop to produce their own examples of “activist graffiti.” Alongside rightly serious marches and other forms of protest, “The State of D.C.” encourages all residents of Washington, D.C. to also advocate through creativity, joy, humor, and the arts.
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New Orleans, Louisiana

Between Life and Loss: Deathwork as Community Work

Date & Time TBD | Location: Hermann-Grima House (tentative) | Organizers: Amiyah King, The Afterwords Consulting

Guided by death doula Amiyah King, “Between Life and Loss: Deathwork as Community Work” will invite participants to engage in hands-on rituals like washing and shrouding life-sized manikins, tending ancestor altars, and more, drawing from New Orleans’ rich funeral traditions. Attendees will have the opportunity to discover the sacred labor of deathcare, reflect on mortality, and experience how community and ritual bring healing, resilience, and connection. Open to ages 14 and older, this event will offer a powerful, immersive look at what it truly means to be human.Event Page

Clarksdale, Mississippi

Words on Water: Reading, Reflection, and Journeying on the Mississippi

April 18–25 (tentative) | Location: TBD | Organizers: Mississippi Humanities Council; Quapaw Canoe Company

“Words on Water: Reading, Reflection, and Journeying on the Mississippi” will allow participants to experience the Mississippi River through literature, discussion, and shared exploration. Presented by the Mississippi Humanities Council, this unique program blends a deep reading of W. Ralph Eubanks’ When It’s Darkness on the Delta with a guided canoe journey near Clarksdale. Over two weeks, participants will engage in conversations about place, identity, and belonging at the historic Cutrer Mansion before embarking on the river with Quapaw Canoe Company for a day of reflection, movement, and connection. By uniting story and place, “Words on Water” will offer an immersive humanities experience that explores how landscape shapes community, memory, and meaning.
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Holly Springs, Mississippi

The Ida B. Wells in Marshall County Tour

April 25, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | Location: TBD | Organizers: The Center for the Study of Southern Culture; The Rosa Foundation

The “Ida B. Wells in Marshall County Tour” will bring the formative environments of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a twentieth-century leader, to life. Born enslaved in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862, Wells-Barnett was a journalist, anti-lynching advocate, suffragist, activist, and progressive theorist who called out injustice and urged Americans to resist oppression. This commemorative tour will visit several sites connected to her early life in Holly Springs, offering visitors a sense of the political culture that helped to shape her democratic vision and activism.
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Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Storytelling and the Arts: Arab American Poetry and Song

Date & Time TBD | Location: TBD | Organizers: UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies

“Storytelling and the Arts: Arab American Poetry and Song” will offer an evening of live poetry, music, and dance that centers Arab American voices and explores how artists tell stories of migration, belonging, and resilience. This event is hosted by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies (CMEIS) alongside community and student partners in recognition of Arab American Heritage Month (April). This event will close with a moderated discussion bringing artists and scholars into conversation and inviting the audience to reflect on how creative expression builds connection across difference. Desserts and refreshments from a local Middle Eastern bakery will be served.
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Durham, North Carolina

NCCU Latin American Festival: Afro-Dominicans Between the Lines

April 26, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. (tentative) | Location: North Carolina Central University | Organizers: The Department of Language and Literature, North Carolina Central University

“The NCCU Latin American Festival: Afro-Dominicans Between the Lines” will be a one-day bilingual public event celebrating the stories, traditions, and resilience of Durham’s Afro-Dominican community, one of the city’s fastest-growing yet underrepresented Latinx groups. Hosted by North Carolina Central University, the festival will present music, food, film, storytelling, and dialogue to explore Afro-Dominican identity at the intersections of language, race, and belonging in the American South. The program features a full day of interconnected activities, including a group discussion, foodways demonstration, and a film screening. The festival will conclude with a performance highlighting Afro-Dominican heritage and the shared histories of the Black diaspora.
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Denton, Texas

Bread and Altars: Braiding Life and Death

Date & Time TBD | Location: TBD | Organizers: Texas Woman’s University; University of North Texas

Through the foods we consume and the people we eat with—as well as what and who are taboo—we build our sense of self and identity and, importantly, our sense of being human. Taking a kaleidoscopic approach to food, this one-day project “Bread and Altars: Braiding Life and Death” will center bread as a material and symbol of nourishment that sustains us physically, socially, and spiritually. This project will encourage people to notice and reflect on their relationships to and through food in three parts: a bread-making workshop, a community meal, and an altar-making activity.
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Los Angeles, California

Five Flavors: Asian American Food, Sex & Labor

Date & Time TBD | Location: TBD | Organizers: Lena Chen; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA); BAD ASIANS

Staged in a Chinese banquet hall, “Five Flavors” will weave firsthand oral histories from Asian American sex workers with a performance lecture on the history of Chinese American food, immigration exclusion, and labor. Each story is paired with a dish representing a flavor from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): salty, sour, bitter, sweet, or pungent, which corresponds to an organ and emotion. As dishes circulate among participants, the performance draws connections between Panda Express, American colonialism, Julia Child, racialized pornography, and Western feminism. The performance becomes a potluck of stories, representing Asian American womanhood through the metaphor of consumption and using food to heal fears, anxieties, anger, and resentments in Asian communities.
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Los Angeles, California

The Himalaya: Tibetan Music, Dance, and Food

April 26, 1–4 p.m. (tentative) | Location: Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles | Organizers: Fowler Museum at University of California, Los Angeles

Through innovative presentations of Tibetan performing arts, “The Himalaya: Tibetan Music, Dance, and Food” will reveal the depth and continuity of a Buddhist Indigenous culture that stretches across a vast Himalayan landscape. The half-day program will bring the public together with master performers, local Tibetan and other Himalayan communities, and UCLA students and faculty. Together, attendees will experience Tibetan performance as a living archive of cultural memory, where oral poetry, rhythm, and gesture become forms of translation between worlds. The event will feature a public concert, a workshop of Tibetan dance open to all, and a rich selection of Tibetan and South Asian food catered by local businesses from the local Los Angeles Tibetan community.
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Los Angeles, California

Living Legends of Drag: Stories of LGBTQ+ Artistry & Culture

Date & Time TBD | Location: TBD | Organizers: California LGBT Arts Alliance; One Institute; Drag Arts Lab

“Living Legends of Drag” will present an evening of performance, with an accompanying panel conversation, showcasing California drag queens and kings whose performance practices span six decades. The multi-generational event will uplift drag as a unique form of cultural work that exists “between the lines” of diverse gender expressions, histories, geographies, and communities. In addition to adult participants, this event will offer a unique, accessible opportunity for teens curious about drag to experience an age-appropriate performance and conversation. The evening will highlight drag’s rich historical legacy of aesthetic, affective, craft techniques that constitutes a special form of storytelling, cultural commentary, and community-building.
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