Past Themes
In three-year periods, the COFAC CoLab examines the intersection of artistic disciplines as they relate to and are shaped by complex, real-world issues. The COFAC CoLab 2021 – 2024 theme “Invisible Architectures” focused on exploring the origin stories of physical institutions and place-based strategies that contribute to institutional growth.
Invisible Architectures
Professor’s Dr. Kalima Young, (Department of Electronic Media and Film) and Ada Pinkston (Department of Art + Design, Art History Art Education) served as Towson University’s College of Fine Arts and Communications CoLab Directors from 2021 – 2024.
Inspired by the truth and reconciliation process, their project, Invisible Architectures, was a multi-year, interdisciplinary container designed to create avenues for projects and programs that reinscribe the voices of Black, Brown, Indigenous and Immigrant populations in the narrative of Towson University. It also made visible the place-based strategies and cultural frictions that have contributed to Towson University’s growth and development as an anchor institution in Baltimore.
Each year of their directorship explored Invisible Architectures through a different framework: the first year to defining truth and reconciliation, while unearthing Towson University’s history of place-based frictions; the second year to the archival silence which informs the way art is produced and taught within the Center of Fine Arts and Communications, and the final year to producing scholarship toward a new, more equitable archive for the university as it continues to create an anti-oppressive and anti-racist educational environment.
Past Projects
East Towson Critical Confabulations
East Towson Critical Confabulations, a mixed media art event, examined Historic East Towson, a Black neighborhood founded in the 1850s, and circled around how the past impacts the present.
How can we remember the stories that are intentionally forgotten? How do we reconcile a toxic past to build a healthier future? From music to theater, to video projects, artists (including musicians, dancers, visual artists, theater artists, video artists, and mixed media artists) developed a creative space that honored and uplifted the African American community in the blocks that are often overlooked.
East Towson Critical Confabulations featured artworks in progress by Sheila Gaskins, Ailish Hopper, Noor Khan, Jamal Moore, and students from TU PARTNERS: Northeast Towson Improvement Association + Towson University
Archival Silent NOISE
The Archival Silence conference considered the invisible, ignored and silenced areas of our artistic disciplines by examining the architectures of oppression and liberation. To borrow from the framework of reconciliation, speaking truths fosters accountability, redress and helps prevent future injustices.
By exploring approaches to re-visibilizing and reimagining the archives of our disciplines in the field and in the classroom, Archival Silent Noise created a space to honor and generate joyful noise and good trouble. This included panel discussions, workshops, conversations, papers, essays, happenings and artistic presentations celebrating higher education/artist/community collaborations, interdisciplinary collaborations, and artistic silos.