AFTERWORDS: assembly 

AFTERWORDS is the Center for the Arts' public program series, asking: what happens after the encounter with the work of art? Each year, AFTERWORDS is organized around a keyword addressing different dimensions of art’s capacity to not only reflect but to transform the world.

To assemble is both to come together and to make or construct. These two meanings are inextricable: to come together is to make something (like a “we”) out of nowhere; to make or construct something out of other things rests on the belief that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. How does art take up this power of assembly? How does it call assemblies into being? And, in the wake of what art helps us assemble, what other work remains to be done?

Read Democracy in Action: Three Alumnae Discuss Collaboration on New Performance Work in The Wesleyan Connection.

The three assemblies in spring 2025 will feature Peter Zuspan and Helga Davis, Emily Jacir and Camila Palomino, and mayfield brooks.

Learn more about past AFTERWORDS: assembly events.

Image: Saidiya Hartman ’83, Hon. ’19, Kiara Benn ’20, and Kaneza Schaal ’06 in October 2024. Photo by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.