Artist Lecture Series 4 (John Halaka)

The MFA Program in the Art Department is presenting an Artist Lecture Series. We are inviting six artists throughout the Spring 2021 Semester. This is the 4th one of the series. For the list of all the six talks, visit here (Artist Lecture Series).

John Halaka 
Hosted by Tracy Fish, Assistant Professor
March 30, Tuesday, 6pm (PST)
Free: Register here

John Halaka is a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of San Diego, where he has taught since 1991. He received his MFA in the Visual Arts from the University of Houston in 1983, and his B.A. in Fine Arts from the City University of New York Baccalaureate Program, with Brooklyn College as home school.

As a visual artist working in the fields of drawing, painting, photography and oral history, John has long been committed to developing an art practice that adheres to the philosophy of “the artist as public servant.”   His artwork provides an arena for both the participants and the viewers, to meditate on survival and resistance as conditions that shape the life experiences of displaced populations.  

John’s multi-disciplinary project, Forgotten Survivors, engaged Palestinian refugee communities in a process of speaking of their personal histories of forced displacement and the ongoing cultural genocide they have collectively experienced over the course of four generations.  A recent project that was abruptly interrupted by the COVID pandemic, is titled Vanishing Harvest: Meditations on the End and Rebirth of Palestinian Agriculture, also employs oral history, photography and drawing to investigate the existential threats that Palestinian farmers are experiencing due to the ongoing military occupation of their lands, as well as the changing economic and environmental conditions.   

John is currently developing a large series of drawings on maps of the United States and Palestine, titled Landscapes of Resistance. The drawings honor histories of cultural survival and creative resistance against colonial repression by Native Americans, African Americans and Palestinians.

Please click the links to register for this free talk. If you have any questions, please contact Miya Hannan at miyah@unr.edu.

This event has been made possible with the support of the Art Department Nieder Enduement, the School of the Arts Artist Lecture Funding, and the College of Liberal Arts Hilliard Enduement. Thank you.