(Carson, CA) — California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) has entered into an impactful strategic partnership with acclaimed mixed media artist Toni Scott to inform and inspire students and the broader community to explore emblematic historical and cultural themes through art.
Scott’s engagement with the CSUDH campus begins this fall and will open a new window of innovative academic and co-curricular endeavors.
“This new CSUDH-Toni Scott collaboration represents a meshing of individual and institutional souls creating energy that feeds the other in reciprocal ways, and provides the broader community with a lifeline to its past, present, and future,” says CSUDH President Thomas Parham. “In our quest to become a model urban university, CSUDH is positioning itself as the source for culturally rich and currently relevant information which the arts help us achieve through the visual expressions and renderings by the artists themselves.”
“Critical to my work is the advancement of understanding between cultures to engender greater respect and appreciation,” says Scott, whose ancestral roots include a mixture of African, Native American, and European backgrounds. A citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation, Scott explains that learning of her multicultural family heritage inspired her focus on giving life to the lost images and stories of history. “Collaborating with CSUDH to inspire and educate our future generations through art is an honor and a privilege,” says Scott. “I know we are going to do amazing things.”
The campus’s deep social justice roots are consonant with Scott’s artistic examinations of “the human connection,” as represented in past exhibitions of her work such as “Bloodlines,” “The Family of Mankind,” “American History 101,” and “Indigenous.”
Currently, Scott is among the artists whose works are featured in the group exhibition, “Emergency on Planet Earth,” opening Oct. 6 at United Talent Agency’s Artist Space; she also is co-hosting the current lecture series “Art as Protest” at the Skirball Cultural Center.
“Toni Scott is a creative spirit undoubtedly inspired by the ancestors and by the human condition. Her artistic multi-medium genius produces pieces that inspire awe, arouse excitement, provoke deep thinking, and instill soul stirring reflections in those who traverse the places and spaces she and her pieces occupy,” remarks Parham.
Through the partnership with CSUDH, Scott will share her work with students as a path to greater understanding and critical examination of significant historic themes that still reside with us today. The university is especially enthusiastic about having Scott work with students around her “Phrenology of Pseudoscience” exhibition, composed of interactive sculptures that translate the measurements of one’s head into music. Students would join Scott in exploring the narrative that inspired the creation of this work— the idea of “measuring” people.
Multiple projects are being scheduled: including exhibitions, a Presidential – Artist Talk and a collaborative live painting/musical performance with the renowned conductor Charles Dickerson III and the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles.
