The SpeakEasy conversation series covers current M2M initiatives and related timely issues. The virtual program builds on audience participation in lively, in-depth conversations with international thinkers and makers. The M2M model is an evolving collaborative process that engages partners, collaborators and community members in the development of public art initiatives.
M2M makes it Easy to join the conversation about public art & collective action!
SpeakEasy is held monthly at Lunchtime (North America Time) to accommodate international time zones. All programs are held virtually on Zoom. RSVP required for Zoom link. Programs are free, donations appreciated.
/ SEASON 3 coming soon! /
Stay tuned to learn more about our virtual and in-person conversations this upcoming season.
Past Programs
The Play as Monument
April 19, 2023
WATCH HERE
Participating panelists include Wyandotte artist / writer / performer Madeline Easley, actor / playwright Kate Hamill, and theatre artist / playwright / director Daniel Alexander Jones. With a video contribution from playwright / lawyer, enrolled citizen of Cherokee Nation Mary Kathryn Nagle and special comments from collaborator Stuart Carden, Artistic Director, Kansas City Repertory Theatre.
M2M interprets monuments as evolving art forms that investigate, reflect, and engage inclusive histories with and in community. Similarly, theatre has always been an art of collaborative storytelling, created through relationship building, with the power to connect communities and ideas. Through this lens, we recognize the role of theatre-making in reflecting and illuminating collective action and its impact on society. This SpeakEasy kicks off a new M2M initiative, with our partners at Kansas City Repertory Theatre, about the power of the play in vital civic engagement.
Movement Makers - Powering Collective Action
March 8, 2023
WATCH HERE
Participating panelists include Lawrence Bartley, prison reform activist and publisher for The Marshall Project, Gissou Nia, human rights lawyer and leader in the campaign to remove the Islamic Republic from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Oswaldo Gomez, community organizer & vice president, Community Commission for Public Safety Accountability, and Teny Gross, activist and founder & executive director of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.
M2M lives inside the power of movements and movement makers - the multitudes of leaders and foot soldiers - who drive strategy and action. The March SpeakEasy features M2M collaborators who are envisioning collective action, inspiring the newly engaged and catalyzing progress across geographies. Together with change-making activists and organizers, we’ll discuss what powers the most vital movements of our time.
Need to catch up on Season 1?
We’ve made it Easy with highlights from Season 1! See some favorite moments with live guests, smoothly spun together by M2M collaborator Kelsey Bogdan.
Feminist Seed Bank Year 1: Dispatches from the Field
December 6, 2022
Featuring Altyn Kapalova, mapenzi chibale nonó (Las Nietas de Nonó) and Melissa H. Potter.
In year one of launching Monument to Climate Justice - Feminist Seed Bank, we traveled and connected to people from the Midwest Prairie to the Arctic to Central Asia and beyond to seek out plant-based practices that are historically cultivated by women. Together we're building a “bank of knowledge” that amplifies and monumentalizes art, medicine and spiritual tradition generating from a seed. Hear from our collaborators who inspire, challenge and expand this work.
Artists on Public Art & Politics
November 1, 2022
Featuring the Guerrilla Girls, Marisa Morán Jahn & Hank Willis Thomas
Artists are working to shift and influence large social systems and policies. A week ahead of the U.S. midterms, we check in with some of THE best.
Reproductive Justice in Public Art
October 13, 2022
Featuring: Angela Ferrell-Zabala, Senior Vice President of Movement Building at Everytown for Gun Safety and former National Director of Strategic Partnerships for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund; Michele Pred, artist and activist; and Nadine Seiler, activist and organizer.
Artists and activists are leading the movement in the streets and on the ground. Marking M2M's latest archive launch, we talk to some of the most influential people creatively shaping the Reproductive Justice movement.
/ SEASON 1 / SEASON 1 / SEASON 1 /
Rashida Phillips, Executive Director, American Jazz Museum & jazz singer and Tricia Rose, Professor, Brown University; Author of “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America,” on the Monument to Female Artistic Liberation in Black Music Movements. With video contributions by ethnomusicologist Dina Bennett and composer & musician Toshi Reagon.
This conversation centers on the creative work of Black female-identifying, expansive thinkers who influenced, shaped and impacted Black music movements. We consider figures who lived and worked ahead of their time and who catalyzed and liberated the next generation of music and movement makers. Together we’ll discuss: how will a monument to this movement empower youth who are discovering their own prowess; how can it impact cross-generational experiences, and who are the individuals and music movements who are influencing creative liberation we should all be aware of right now? This initiative was conceived with the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City.
M2M Movement Builders and collaborators Former Justice Albie Sachs, Constitutional Court, South Africa and Vanessa September, CEO, Constitution Hill Trust, discuss how we may engage with the concept of democracy in a monument. With video contributions from multidisciplinary conceptual artist Bethany Collins and Eric Gottesman, artist, collaborator and educator.
How can we build an international exchange of art and ideas that explores evolving democracies? How do we ensure that our democracy is truly committed to participation and delivers on that promise? What might an artist’s role be in questioning, investigating and strengthening democracy? How might current and future generations build and sustain these concepts? We discuss our international creative exchange of art and ideas with South Africa to build the Monument to Evolving Democracies..
How do we define feminism and feminist lenses, tools and strategies? What do feminist practices actually look like when building public art initiatives and monumentalizing narratives? Why are feminist practices essential for creating public art and for building movements?
We dive into these topics and more with M2M Think Tank Members Michelle Duster, Author/Educator/Organizer and Melissa H. Potter, Artist/Curator/Educator and contributors Jeffreen Hayes, ThreeWalls Executive Director/Curator, E. Patrick Johnson, M2M Think Tank Member/Northwestern University Dean/Scholar/Performer, and Megha Ramaswamy, Population Health Professor, University of Kansas.
Monument to Human Infrastructure with NDWA
February 8, 2022
WATCH HERE
Archives with Urban Art Mapping
January 11, 2022
WATCH HERE
M2M Interviews Urban Art Mapping’s Heather Shirey and Todd Lawrence about public art, social justice and archives. We also hear from artists and archive participants Lori Greene, Seitu Jones, Sam Kirk and Melissa Potter. We discuss: How does creating archives support social justice movements? How do we identify and justify adding a public artwork to an archive? What are the long-term uses/benefits of these archives? How can community-based archives uplift marginalized voices and stories, speaking back to power?
M2M chats with National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) including: Kristina Mevs-Apgar, June Barrett, Special appearances by Ai-jen Poo, and Marisa Jahn.
Nothing has become more clear during these recent years of the pandemic, than the essential value of human beings as our social structure. It is simply the one element we never do without: people. We discuss our collaboration, Monument to Human Infrastructure, and talk with you about the powerful and central role arts and culture play in movement building and activism.