CVA Gallery Events Explore Quilting, Activism and Civic Engagement

Brookdale Community College’s Center for the Visual Arts Gallery, (CVA) will bring art, history and civic engagement together this fall through a series of free public programs exploring how creative expression can reflect communities, challenge ideas and inspire participation.

The series begins during Brookdale’s Civility Week with “Quilting with Brookdale,” an artist talk featuring Brookdale English Professor Elana Maloney, on Monday, October 12, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the CVA Gallery.

Maloney will share her year-long experience quilting with students, faculty and staff from across the Brookdale community. The collaborative project uses quilting as a way to bring people together through creativity, conversation and shared experience.

The exploration of quilting continues Thursday, October 15, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., when Kean University Assistant Professor of Interior Design Jeffery McCullough presents “American Quilts as Agitprop: A Canvas for Social and Political Activism.” The lecture will be offered in the CVA Gallery and via Zoom.

McCullough will examine the radical history of quilting in the United States and the ways quilts have served as vehicles for political and social expression. While quilts are often associated with domestic life and comfort, his presentation will explore how they have also provided a powerful means of communication for people whose voices were frequently excluded from traditional public and political spaces.
Spanning three centuries of American history, the lecture will consider how enslaved women, suffragists, AIDS activists and contemporary artists have used fabric, pattern and symbolism to communicate ideas, advocate for change and make visible stories that might otherwise have gone unheard.

McCullough is an assistant professor in Kean University’s CIDA-accredited BFA Interior Design program and a graduate of the History of Design M.A. program at Parsons School of Design/The New School. His teaching and research focus on design history, including “Design Democracy” and expanding the canon of American interior design history. He also brings 25 years of professional experience in residential interior design to his teaching.

The CVA Gallery’s fall programming will continue Monday, November 2, from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. with “Stars, Stripes, and Architecture,” a case study presentation featuring Brookdale Architecture alumni Kylie Hernandez, Adrian Carpenito and Isaiah Brinson with Professor Edward O’Neill. The program will be presented in the CVA Gallery and via Zoom.

Following the presentation, Angela Kariotis, director of Brookdale’s Center for Transformational Learning, will guide attendees through online tools and apps they can use to find their polling location and prepare to vote on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3.

All three programs are free and open to the public, with no preregistration required. Zoom access information for the October 15 and November 2 programs will be available on the CVA Gallery page of Brookdale’s website prior to each event.