The BC Libraries exhibit and events spaces promote interdisciplinary arts practices, push creative intellectual boundaries, and support research. We welcome proposals for regular art exhibitions and events showcasing works related to social issues, mental health, and human rights. Exhibits may include photography, paintings, sculptures, and other forms of visual art. Space constraints may limit the size and types of media allowed. Contact Abby Walsh for more information: abby.walsh@bc.edu.
Exhibit Run Dates: September 2024 to present
Viewing Available During Social Work Library Hours
For more information see the Quilt of Memories: What Connects Us All booklet.
BC Community Quilt of Memories II is the second quilt in this ongoing project, created by BCSSW graduates of the class of 2024, Melissa Bustillo and Josue Velasquez Higueros, as part of their work in the Spier Fellowship in Aging. This beautifully crafted quilt is a tribute to loved ones and the legacy of community, featuring patches created by BC Social Work students to honor their elders and personal stories of intergenerational bonds. See part one of the Quilt of Memories series
Exhibit Run Dates: September 2023- May 2024
Viewing Available During Social Work Library Hours
In honor of those lost to Alzheimer's Globally, approximately 55 million individuals are currently living with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia (Alzheimer’s Association, 2016). The Alzheimer Association (2023) estimates that 6.7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s dementia as of 2023. That means that about 1 in 9 individuals age 65 or older, are affected. They also estimate that about 110 of every 100,000 Americans, ages 30-64, have early onset dementia. By 2050, and as the aging population of 65+ grows, the population affected by Alzheimer’s is projected to grow to 12.7 million (Alzheimer’s Association, 2023). In 2021, approximately 121,499 deaths were recorded due to Alzheimer’s dementia in the United States.
Reference
Alzheimer's Association. (2023). Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures. https://www.alz.org/media/Documents/alzheimers-facts-and-figures.pdf
The Quilt of Memories was created by BCSSW graduate student, Josue Velasquez Higueros in conjunction with Professor and Older Adults and Family Spier Fellowship Director, Christina Matz. See part two of the Quilt of Memories series.
As part of a community service project, Velasquez Higueros designed a series of quilts to honor the memory of older adults who have positively impacted BCSSW students. More than a dozen students, including several fellows, decorated pieces of fabric to celebrate the lives of the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or mentors who have helped shape who they have become and then wrote letters, poems, or vignettes to explain the decorations, which Velasquez Higueros sewed together.
Exhibit Run Dates: March 11, 2024 - May 31, 2024
Liz Cinquino is a fiber artist who has dabbled in many creative arenas including photography, greeting card making, and quilts. This exhibit, “Checkered Past” concentrates on her colorful quilted wallhangings.
All of Liz’s works are originally designed and play off different geometric shapes. Batik fabrics, many of which are hand-dyed by the craftspeople of Indonesia, are highlighted in Liz’s creations.
Liz comes from a long line of craftswomen. She has used her Grandma Argana’s 100-year-old Singer sewing machine to join pieces of her work.
Exhibit Run Dates: January 16, 2024 - February 29, 2024
On April 21st, 2001, amidst the charged atmosphere of Quebec City, I joined the ranks of the protesters challenging the Summit of the Americas. The exhibit is more than a scrapbook of photographs; it is a narrative of dissent and solidarity, captured through the lens of my film-based Pentax K1000. These images are fragments of a larger story, one that unfolded in the streets and alleys, culminating in the People's Summit the week before.
The exhibit showcases two contrasting trajectories of the protest. The first is a peaceful, 25,000-strong, carnivalesque march, predominantly comprising trade unions and non-government organizations. In contrast, the second path reveals the intensity of the smaller 'direct action' group, comprising mainly 2,000 college students and a contingent from an anti-establishment bloc, as they diverged towards the three-mile barricade and police lines encompassing the summit of world leaders.
My collection of photographs is an invitation to witness the multifaceted nature of this protest. Accompanying the photographs are contemporaneous news articles, providing context and broadening the narrative scope. I invite you to engage with these images and articles, to delve into the two stories they tell – one of collective action and the other of direct confrontation.
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Adam Williams is the Reference and Instruction Librarian at the Boston College Social Work Library. As a hobby, he used to develop his own black and white photos from film. Adam transitioned to digital photography for a short stint and digitized all of his negatives for preservation purposes. Then, like much of the rest of the world, Adam moved on to taking pictures with his phone.
Exhibit Run Dates: September 18, 2023 - November 15, 2023
During the global quarantine, social spaces that harnessed physical contact, spectacle, and sensation were shut down; the absence of such spaces, specifically music venues, accentuated the chasm between our psychic and physical realities. Feeling ineffectual and small, I reimagined concerts as mythic schemas; as loud, corporeal Elysiums where we could celebrate the fragility of our forms. These paintings depict longing through sincerity, fatalism, and a touch of heavy metal cheesecake. By paralleling the familiar pageantry of Baroque and Rococo fresco ceilings, they act as playful meditations on paradise – and also as critiques of Art History's pearly-gated communities. Clad in their finest merch, my cartoonish moshers mime and mock images of saints in a pristine sky. They are cheeky retorts against a canon that excludes. They are an apotheosis for our shells, a celebration of our dust.
| A Place Where They Only Sing the Chorus |
Can’t Keep Good | Clouds Made of Curses |
|---|---|---|
Sing the Chorus Oil on canvas 48in x 36in 2022 |
Oil on canvas 48in x 36in 2022 |
Oil on canvas 48in x 36in 2023 |
Jordan McGirk is an artist working in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in painting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis. In previous years, Jordan McGirk’s work explored and critiqued images of western hyper-masculinity. His most recent paintings examine depictions of communal hyperobjects, escapism, and the failing anthropocene.
Jordan McGirk has exhibited work nationally, including Amos Eno Gallery in New York, Lit Gallery in Tennessee, AVC Gallery in California, Hamiltonian Gallery in Washington, D.C. and at the St. Louis Lambert International Airport. His work is currently shown by Houska Gallery in St. Louis, MO.
Exhibit Run Dates: September 2021 - October 2021
An exhibit called "The Day After Yesterday: Portraits of Dementia" was on display at the Social Work Library and in the O'Neill Library Reading Room between September and October 2021. Photographer Joe Wallace met with a diverse group of individuals living with dementia in the hopes of destigmatizing the disease and those who suffer from it. The resulting collection of portraits and stories is powerful and compelling.
For more information about the project, visit portraitsofdementia.com
Author's Corner, proudly hosted by the esteemed Boston College School of Social Work, celebrates the diverse voices and profound insights of our faculty, staff, and cherished alumni. From riveting narratives to groundbreaking research, the Author's Corner serves as a dynamic showcase for the remarkable talents within our BCSSW community. Delve into the pages of thought-provoking books and creative works that explore the complexities of social work, human connection, and societal change. Explore the Author's Corner in the Social Work Library and discover the power of storytelling to ignite change and foster understanding in our ever-evolving world. Thank the Boston College School of Social Work Alumni Association for supporting this endeavor.
About the Book
In her memoir, Pork Belly Tacos with a Side of Anxiety: My Journey Through Depression, Bulimia, and Addiction, Yvonne Castañeda shares vibrant stories of her childhood growing up in Miami as the daughter of humble immigrants from Mexico and Cuba . . . and how she came to develop an unhealthy relationship with food. To help ease her mami’s nervios, Yvonne becomes a perfectionist from a young age, achieving high grades at school and mastering the piano. But as her Cuban family members openly make comments about her awkward desarrollo, or puberty, Yvonne enters a new phase of self-consciousness that begins her obsession with weight.
Reserve the book at the BCSSW library here.
About the Author
Yvonne Castañeda is the director of Community-Based Initiatives and a part-time faculty member at the BC School of Social Work. She earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from Florida International University and a Master of Social Work from Boston College, where she was a proud member of the Latinx Leadership Initiative. Yvonne is a trauma-focused therapist certified in EMDR. She has worked primarily with Latinx individuals, couples, and families to help them navigate relational conflict and improve overall mental and emotional health.
About the Book
When Ilana Amrani-Cohen was diagnosed with a brain tumor in her fifties, she began to ask herself questions about her future. What should she do with the time she had left? She describes a process, a journey, and the questions that she asked that helped shape her decisions in her self-help guide, Stepping Down, Not Stepping Away : How To Prepare for What Comes Next in Your Life.
Through a series of interviews with experts, exploring questions related to financial security, mental and physical health, finding purpose, and leaving a legacy, Ilana takes us inside her personal journey of stepping down from a beloved career into a continuous purposeful life.
Reserve the book at the BCSSW library here
About the Author
Ilana Amrani-Cohen has worked in the field of trauma and self-care for 35 years. She stepped down from her position with a nonprofit agency after 25 years, having developed and led programs serving people affected by complex trauma. Currently in private practice consulting and training on issues related to fostering resilience, trauma, and sleep. She has led seminars on these topics nationally and internationally and was deployed to multiple disaster zones. During the pandemic, she led webinars on stress management around the country, as well as to clergy and UN diplomats.
About the Book
All for You : a World War II Family Memoir of Love, Separation, and Loss, begins in a German village before Hitler's Nazi ideology permeates the country. Romero's memoir documents the impact of the Third Reich on her Jewish father, his family, and her Lutheran mother. Hitler’s Racial Purity laws made her parents’ relationship illegal, and they had to meet in secret. The story follows her father to New York and her mother to England, the outbreak of war in 1939, and her father’s life as a refugee in a small New England college town as he tried to save his family and bring her mother over from England so they could marry.
Reserve the book at the BCSSW library here
About the Author
Retired social worker Dena Rueb Romero grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire. She graduated from Brandeis University and received an MA in English from the University of Virginia and an MSW from Boston College School of Social Work. Her essay about German citizenship was published in a book about reclaiming German citizenship. All for You is her first full-length book. Dena still lives in Hanover, where she sings in a women’s chorus, volunteers at a daycare center, and works with an organization supporting refugees and asylum seekers.
