August 29 through September 27, 2019

2019 LABOR DAY ART AND MEDIA EXHIBITION

We had a great month-long celebration of labor! The Labor Day Art and Media Exhibition ran from August 29 through September 27 in the University Museum on the Southern Illinois University campus in Carbondale, Illinois. All of the events were free. See map below.

Exhibits were available for viewing during museum hours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday and when events were occurring in the museum auditorium. 

This year's Labor Day Art and Media Exhibition includes a panel discussion, film screening, poetry reading, cooperative work presentation, Mother Jones lecture, and art exhibit. Click poster to enlarge, and see individual event details below. For more information on the exhibition, contact Cade Bursell, professor, Cinema and Photography, at cbursell@siu.edu.​

Many thanks to the sponsors:

Thursday, September 5, 2019, 6:30-9:30 p.m. - Movie screening: Sorry to Bother You

Screening of the 2018 film Sorry to Bother You in the John C. Guyon Auditorium inside Morris Library on the Southern Illinois University campus in Carbondale. Boots Riley's film is a radical examination of labor, race and identity in the contemporary USA with a SciFi twist. RSVP to Facebook event here. 

George Boulukos, Co-Chair of SI DSA and Professor at SIU Carbondale Department of English, and De’Angelo Williams Jr., a 2010 SIUC alumnus in Cinema and Photography, will offer a discussion. Williams was a McNair Scholar while at SIU Carbondale and later earned a master’s degree in film studies from New York University. After a post-graduate career in broadcast television, marketing and advertisement, he is a lecturer in Mass Communication at SIU Edwardsville while he continues his work in film and television.

Thursday, September 12, 2019, 6:00 p.m. - Poetry Reading

Join us on Thursday, September 12, in the SIU Museum Exhibition Gallery for a poetry reading. Click poster to enlarge.

From lugging a 50-pound backpack leading a rehabilitation wilderness hike in the mountainous forests of North Carolina to cricket farming and working in greenhouses from Michigan to Virginia and being severely burned in the kitchens of Arkansas Kentucky Fried Chicken, SIUC poets Mary Ardery, Jessica Freeman, Judy Jordan, and Jon Tribble have labored, and from this labor have arisen gorgeous poems transcending the blisters and weariness and bone bruising aches and bringing beauty to a world which seems devoid of transcendence or beauty.

Friday, September 13, 2019, 5:00 p.m. - Artists' reception at SIU University Museum

The Labor Day Arts and Media Exhibition will feature works from more than a dozen regional artists in the SIU University Museum. The exhibit features pieces in a variety of mediums including painting, music, video, woodcraft, photography, and screenprinting, each with a focus on labor. Works from the University Museum collection and the Illinois Labor Society will also be on display.

Between August 29 and September 27, exhibits will be available for viewing during museum hours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday and when events are occurring in the museum auditorium. 

​On Friday, September 13 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., come to a free artists' reception in the SIU University Museum. (Special guests Mother Jones and Scabby the Rat!) Click poster to enlarge.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Friday, September 13, 2019, 6:30 p.m. - Lecture: Life & Times of Mother Jones

Rosemary Feurer will present The Life and Times of Mother Jones, legendary labor activist and agitator, at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, September 13, in the University Museum Auditorium. ​Click poster to enlarge.

Feurer is an associate professor in the Department of History at Northern Illinois University and labor historian. Among her works is the book Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950, the winner of the 2007 Wentworth Prize in U.S. History.

See Feurer's extensive collection of labor history information here. This is an enormous resource containing timelines, summaries, links to documents, artwork, teacher resources, glossaries of labor terms, other history sites, and much, much more.

Thursday, September 19, 6:30 p.m. - Panel Discussion: Labor Organizing in Southern Illinois Today

Join us Thursday, September 19 at 6:30 p.m. in the SIU University Museum Auditorium for Labor Organizing in Southern Illinois Today, a panel discussion of representatives from a range of local unions, including Annette Jaynes from the Carbondale Teachers' Union, Ty Peterson from AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees), Logan Plummer from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), and Judy Simpson from Laborers Local 773. 

George Boulukos will host the panel. Come and learn about the state of labor organizing in Southern Illinois after the Janus Decision. Panelists will update us on their experiences organizing in our region, share their thoughts on the differing directions of labor politics on the federal and state levels, and perhaps let us know about new efforts they have planned.

Click poster to enlarge.

Sunday, September 25, 2019, 5:30 p.m. - Discussion: The Future of Work is Cooperative 

Come out for The Future of Work is Cooperative on Sunday, September 25 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the SIU Museum Auditorium.

​Carbondale Spring will discuss the history of cooperatives and the work they are doing to make Fat Patties in Carbondale a cooperative restaurant.

See Carbondale Spring's Cooperative Business Fund video and fundraiser here.