Arts of Dignity

Pokagon Art Collection Opening
Thursday, February 23, 2023 | 4:00 p.m. | Geddes Hall, Coffee House

Join the Center for Social Concerns and artists from the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi in celebrating the new collection of art in the Geddes Hall Coffee House. Food and drink will be available. 

Featured artists: Jamie Chapman Brown, Kathy Getz Fodness, John Fox, David Martin, and Jason Wesaw


Singing the Story of American Workers: A Concert with Folk Musician Tom Breiding
September 19, 2022 | 7:00 p.m. | Washington Hall

The Center for Social Concerns is proud to kick off our annual Arts of Dignity series for 22-23 with Tom Breiding, a singer-songwriter long engaged with the labor movement and environmental justice in Appalachia. 

About Tom: Many would say that country music as well as the broader Americana genre are the musical heart and soul of our nation, but singer/songwriter (and working rock guitarist) Tom Breiding has been creating a sub-genre of Americana for decades. A celebrated writer, Breiding focuses on the true heart and soul of America: our laborers and union members. Hailing from West Virginia, a state with a large populous of mine workers and laborers, Breiding has shared an intense artistic connection with the union members of United States for the entirety of his career, most especially United Mine Workers of America.

La Casa de Amistad Mural Unveiling 
December 12, 2022 | 12:00–1:00 p.m. | La Casa de Amistad

All are welcome to celebrate the completion of South Bend’s newest mural, a collaborative project between the Center for Social Concerns’ Art and Social Change class and La Casa de Amistad’s Citizenship class. The project was led by local artist, Freddy Rodriguez, and students contributed to the design and painting as they sought to translate immigration narratives into visual language and explore the role of beauty in enacting the common good. Lunch provided. 

Student Art Exhibit Opening Reception
Thursday, April 20, 2023 | 5:00 p.m. | Geddes Hall

Selections from the 2023 student art exhibit will be on display throughout Geddes Hall. Stop by to view pieces that explore contemporary realities in which dignity is threatened or enhanced. Food and drink will be served.

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Friday, April 21, 2023 | 4:00 p.m. | Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium

MacArthur “Genius” Nicole R. Fleetwood is a celebrated writer, cultural theorist, curator, and art critic. Growing up in Hamilton, Ohio, she witnessed the vulnerability of her community to excessive policing, punitive surveillance, and mass incarceration, and the direct impact these had on her family, especially her male cousins. The concept for her groundbreaking book Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration started in 2010, when she hung photographs of her cousins in Ohio prisons on the walls of her Harlem apartment. Marking Time explores the impact of US incarceration on contemporary visual art, highlighting artists who have been incarcerated alongside artists whose art examines US institutions and systems of confinement. Based on interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and the author’s own family experiences with the penal system, Marking Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into elaborate works of art.

Foundry Field Groundbreaking
Friday, May 12, 2023 | 4:00–7:00 p.m. | Southeast Park, 620 Wenger Street, South Bend

Foundry Field will provide a quality public-access baseball field for children and adults in South Bend’s urban core. When completed, it will be a truly remarkable public space that adds vitality to the Southeast neighborhood and celebrates the baseball stories of our city’s marginalized communities.

Stop by to celebrate the groundbreaking of this exciting addition to South Bend’s baseball history.

Virtual Gallery