Using Art to Heal

If you’ve visited the Lakeside Lounge lately, you may have noticed something different. The Listening Wall, sponsored by the Campus Inclusion Team, is a series of questions asking people in the GSU community to reflect and respond about issues of equity and equality at GSU.

The wall was inspired by Subway Therapy, an art exhibit displayed in a New York train station after this year’s presidential election, and by “transformation: Portraits of Trans Men by Lorenzo Triburgo,” an exhibit curated by GSU Visual Arts Gallery Director Jeff Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson also guided the Campus Inclusion Team (CIT) in the creation of The Listening Wall.

“The arts have a unique capacity to raise awareness, build bigger constituencies for social justice, and meet people where they are,” said Robert Clay, member of the CIT and Director of Diversity and Inclusion at GSU. “We designed this wall hoping to at least accomplish that last point by giving voice to people who often feel unheard.”

Responses shared at the Listening Wall will be gathered by theme, and used for a much broader discussion at the All-Campus Symposium on April 28. If you want to share your responses directly with the Campus Inclusion Team, email the Professor Rupert Evans, CIT Chair.

Questions at the Listening Wall

• How can we create community that affirms equity and inclusion for all individuals from diverse social identities?

• Share a time when policies, practices, and procedures at GSU did not protect you or help you due to your social identity?

• How does your program of study or workplace welcome you and individuals of diver social identities? How about in the leadership?

• How do we increase more meaningful interactions between faculty/staff and students?