MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at 847-491-4819 or jkm229@northwestern.edu

October 12, 2004

Artist to Give Kravits Lecture

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Artist Indira Freitas Johnson will present a slide lecture on her work in the United States and India Oct. 19 as the Jeanne Kravits Memorial Lecturer on the Arts.

The presentation will be at 3:30 p.m. in Northwestern University’s James P. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati Auditorium of the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive, on the Evanston campus. The event is open to the public.

The Jeanne Kravits Memorial Lecture is an annual event sponsored by the Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR) at the University’s School of Continuing Studies. Prior to the lecture, members of the ILR will work with Johnson to create a community art project called Communal Rhythm.

Johnson’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in a number of private and public collections. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most recently the prestigious Governor’s Award for the Arts.

Her passion to make art part of everyday life and to involve local communities in the art process is evident in all her work.  Influenced by an artist father and a mother who was a social activist, Johnson believes strongly that art and activism are a powerful combination for social change. In 1993 in response to the rise of ethnic violence the world over, she founded Shanti Foundation for Peace, which uses the processes of art to help people understand that their individual actions can go a long way to forge lasting peace. Shanti’s school based projects operate in Evanston and Chicago public schools.

In recent years, Johnson has been involved in community art projects and exhibits which have provided an opportunity to participate and a voice for groups that are seldom heard from in the world of professional art exhibitions.  These include women from a domestic violence shelter in Chicago, children who have been affected by leprosy in Bombay and a literacy group in Providence, R.I.

For more information on the lecture contact Lisa Kupferberg at (847) 467-3021 or l-kupferberg1@northwestern.edu.