Anna Deavere Smith

Anna Deavere Smith: Think. Feel. Do.

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 12:00pm
Center for the Arts

Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 12:00pm
Center for the Arts

Friday, April 11, 2025 at 12:00pm
Center for the Arts

Saturday, April 12, 2025 at 12:00pm
Center for the Arts

As the final engagement of her year-long artist residency with the Center for the Arts, Anna Deavere Smith Hon. ’97 assembles a multi-day convening of guests and hosts, thinkers and doers, from the Wesleyan University campus and beyond.

Read Anna Deavere Smith Starts Yearlong Artist Residency in The Wesleyan Connection.

Participants will explore the power of art in building bridges to histories that help us understand (and transform) the present. Closed conversations among participating artists and scholars allows for deep investigation across disciplines, while public sharing of their work “before it’s ready” allows for a raw relationship between audiences and the issues presented in the participants’ work.

The program draws its impetus from the following quote from Civil Rights leader John Lewis on the importance of sensing the long arc of history: “We used to say that ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part. And if we believe in the change we seek, then it is easy to commit to doing all we can, because the responsibility is ours alone to build a better society and a more peaceful world.”

Learn more about Anna Deavere Smith’s artist residency at Wesleyan.