Welcome to COFAC's podcast on this year's theme, Lighten Up: Humor & Satire. Today, we'll hear from Dr. Kamila young, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic Media and Film, who with Professor Ada Pinkston from Art Education, is co-director of COFAC's CoLab Invisible Architectures.

Running from 2021 to 2024, Invisible Architectures is an interdisciplinary container designed to create avenues for projects and programs that re-inscribe the voices of black, brown, indigenous and immigrant populations in the narrative of Towson University.

It also aims to make visible the place based strategies and cultural frictions that have contributed to Towson University's growth and development as an anchor institution in Baltimore. Every year will explore invisible architectures through a different framework. The first year is dedicated to defining truth and reconciliation while unearthing talcing university's history of place based frictions.

In the fall, we are doing this through the EMF Virtual Fall film series and a frictive workshop focused on our transition back to face to face education. In the spring, we will have an open call for artists to participate in critical confabulations, a large scale projection of stories and artwork about the black community and East Towson that has been paved over as the county has expanded. 

The second year, we will explore archival silence, which informs the way art is produced and taught within the center of fine arts and communications through a series of brown bag discussions, a national conference and the creation of a new course called Black in the City.

The final year of Invisible Architectures is dedicated to producing scholarship that will create a new, more equitable archive for the university as it continues to create an anti oppressive and anti-racist educational environment. Though housed within the Center of the Arts and Communication, we intend to engage the overall Towson University community, the larger UMS system and local communities surrounding the college. In doing so, it is our hope that invisible architectures will create a blueprint for embedding truth and reconciliation processes within educational institutions in Maryland.

This year's virtual fall film series explores the concept of truth and reconciliation across multiple cinematic journeys. The virtual fall film series runs October 4th through October 25th, Monday evenings at 7:30 p.m. via Zoom, and it's free for the community.

As a virtual series, interested attendees will be provided links to the films prior to our virtual discussions on Mondays at 7:30 p.m. and special guests will be invited to participate an in-depth and provocative virtual discussions. 

Our first film will be screening October 4th, 2021. A Good Day to Die was directed by David Mueller and Lin Salt. This film chronicles a movement that started a revolution and inspired a nation by recounting the life of Dennis Banks, the Native American who co-founded the American Indian Movement in 1968, to advocate and protect the rights of American Indians. This film provides an in-depth look at history and issues surrounding AIM's formation. 

On October 11th, we will be screening The Forgiven, directed by Roland Joffe. This is a drama about the restorative justice and forgiveness work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Our special guest speaker for the screening will be Professor Mukwae Wabei Siyolwe in the Theater Arts Department.

On October 18th, 2021. We will be screening I Am Not Your Negro, directed by Raoul Peck. This Oscar nominated documentary is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and explores America's institutionalized racism by imagining the completion of James Baldwin's last book. Our guest speaker for the screening of I Am Not Your Negro is fellow CoLab director, Professor Ada Pinkston. 

On October 25th, we will be screening three BOPE. It's directed by Martin McDonagh. Mildred Hayes, a hard nosed mother, is seeking justice for her murdered daughter with no arrest. After seven months, Mildred puts up three roadside signs to go the ebbing police chief into action. 

Though it may seem like the COFAC theme of lighten up humor and satire diverges from the serious nature of the CoLab Invisible Architectures Project, I honestly feel like they overlap. Satire and humor are an important approach to having difficult conversations about memory and reconciliation. 

In my opinion, humor and satire put us at ease, and when we are at ease, we are better able to hear difficult truths about ourselves.

Additionally, satire, if done well, punches up and allows irony to create beautiful reckonings. I believe the combination of the Invisible Architectures CoLab project and this year's COFAC theme are the right mixture of light and truth telling needed to tackle what has been a remarkably difficult time in our nation as a whole.

I hope you will join us.