Dar Williams

Artists and scholars have long been at the forefront of protest movements in the United States and around the world. Whether by direct action or through their work, they have been instrumental in calling out injustice, fighting for the rights of marginalized groups, and drawing attention to problems both local and global in scale. It has become increasingly urgent for artists to generate creative responses in these fraught political times. Sarah Lawrence College and the Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities will host an intensive workshop for artists and scholars to develop their own practice of activist art.

This ten-day residential retreat for writers, musicians, activists, artists and scholars will take place on the Sarah Lawrence campus from June 13-22. Program faculty include musician Dar Williams, poet Mahogany L. Browne, theatre artist Dana Edell, artist David Birkin, writer Brian Morton, and scholar Michelle Slater. Participants will attend daily seminars and workshops and have time to create original work. In our seminars, we will draw on cultural and intellectual history to inspire contemporary thought with an interdisciplinary emphasis. There will be guest artists, evening coffee house events for sharing work, and individual meetings with faculty.

Mayapple promotes mindfulness for artists and scholars through daily practices of yoga and meditation that are restorative and affirmative in nature. Past participants have taken these practices home and incorporated them in their daily routine.

Our goal is for participants to be immersed in a retreat where their art and scholarship can be nurtured in a sanctuary-like setting as they collaborate and develop their creative and intellectual ideas into concrete pieces.

Information