For her outstanding work producing an equity-based art exhibition featuring more than 200 pieces of work from around the world, Nancy DeJoy, Associate Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University, is this year’s recipient of the Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Creative Activity presented by MSU’s Office of University Outreach and Engagement.
The exhibition, titled Creativity in the Time of COVID-19: Art for Equity and Social Justice, was held in April 2023 at four different Lansing locations. The month-long exhibition explored the use of creativity to cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. It featured art from all seven continents made by more than 100 artists, each from communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic, who responded with creativity as a personal outlet and tool for social change.
MSU Libraries now houses a repository of the Creativity in the Time of COVID-19 exhibition, making it available to people around the world and adding to the story of the pandemic while highlighting the voices and creative work of many who often go unheard.
“The idea was to try to add voices from people disproportionately affected by the pandemic and to give them a way to show how they use creativity to add to their stories,” DeJoy said. “We must make public spaces for these voices if we are to tell the full story of the pandemic and the inequities and structures of social injustice it exposes.”
“The idea was to try to add voices from people disproportionately affected by the pandemic and to give them a way to show how they use creativity to add to their stories.”
Dr. Nancy DeJoy
Supported by a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s “Just Futures” Initiative, the exhibition was three years in the making by a team led by DeJoy and Fatima Konare, a graduate student at the time in the M.A. in Writing and Rhetoric program. The team sought to showcase the power of art to inspire, connect, and advocate for change, particularly in the face of a global pandemic.
While opening up spaces for international dialogue about creativity, health, well-being, social justice, and the effects of COVID-19 on everyday life, the Creativity in the Time of COVID-19 exhibition gave the artists a platform to assert agency in the face of oppressive social systems and to tell stories that elevate equity and social justice.
A diverse range of art forms were featured in the exhibition, including paintings, ceramics and glass sculptures, immersive digital displays, fiber art, poetry, and more. The collection represented a variety of voices, perspectives, and experiences during the pandemic.
It revealed stories of loss, anger, and sorrow, as well as stories of generosity, strength, and resilience, and of maintaining community and personal connections during the global crisis. There also was a significant focus on racial diversity; LGBTQ+, immigrant, and refugee populations; those of Native American and Indigenous descent; and individuals with disabilities or chronic health issues.
The Distinguished Partnership Award values this kind of work along with a community-based creative activity that leaves positive and lasting impacts. DeJoy’s exhibition excelled in both these aspects.
“This award recognizes community collaborations that focus on opening spaces for voices that we need to listen to as we turn our hope for equity and social justice into inclusive action,” DeJoy said. “It is my honor to accept it and to share it with my local community partners. The many MSU students involved in the project also deserve a shout out, especially my co-curator Fatima Konare and student team leaders Kelsey Abner and Ben Lash.”
The Creativity in the Time Of COVID-19 emerged from DeJoy’s work with students. In early 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic when all MSU classes moved to remote learning, DeJoy gave her first-year writing students the opportunity to do creative final projects instead of writing traditional essays as one way to help them deal with the stress of the pandemic.
“This award recognizes community collaborations that focus on opening spaces for voices that we need to listen to as we turn our hope for equity and social justice into inclusive action.”
Dr. Nancy DeJoy
“We started to realize how important creativity was becoming as we faced the realities of COVID-19,” DeJoy said. “We wanted to find a way to invite the voices of people who were both disproportionately affected by the pandemic and using creativity in their everyday lives to tell their stories. We envision a society in which creative acts of knowledge make open new spaces for equity and social justice.”
To gather pieces for the exhibition, a survey was created and distributed in English and four other languages, along with sign language and Braille, to extend an international invitation to people from around the world to submit artwork created during the pandemic. The team also reached out to art organizations from all over the world to help distribute the survey.
Pieces featured in the exhibition underwent an inclusive selection process, with a group of 26 MSU students, faculty, and staff as well as members of the greater Lansing community reviewing all the art submissions and deciding which pieces to include in the physical exhibition.
To be chosen for the exhibit, a piece had to tell a powerful story about the artist’s inner truth regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the impact of the pandemic on people and communities who were disproportionately affected by this global crisis.
DeJoy has a 15-year history of community-university partnerships at MSU. Focused on social justice issues related to identity, she has worked with survivors of sexual violence and several community partners. These partnerships have resulted in art exhibits/installations and conference presentations, expanding the public spaces for voices of people often not heard in the stories we tell about who we are as a community. One of those projects involved her Illuminating Survivor Voices poem, which was written about in the “’Illuminating Survivor Voices’ Makes Strides Across MSU” article.
The Creativity in the Time of COVID-19 exhibit is her most recent collaboration. For that exhibit, she partnered with the Capital City Film Festival, Impression 5 Science Center, Lansing Art Gallery and Education Center, REACH Studio Art Center, and the Refugee Development Center, which all either served as venues for part of the exhibit or hosted events related to the exhibit.
In partnership with the Capital City Film Festival, the Creativity in the Time of COVID-19 exhibition opening was held along with the film festival’s Red Carpet Premiere Party at the former Frandor Sears Building in Lansing. The Capital City Film Festival was the major grant sub awardee for the exhibition.
DeJoy was presented the Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Creative Activity at the 2024 MSU Outreach and Engagement Awards Ceremony on March 21 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center.
