Stepping Into Truth: Conversations on Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Talking Using Art to Build Bridges Across Racial Divides with Monique Davis

Season 3 Episode 3

Monique Davis

In this conversation Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at the Center for Art  and Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art Monique Davis and I discuss how art can be used to build bridges in our communities as well as be used as a tool to dismantle White Supremacy.

When Whiteness is the yardstick by which all is measured it takes a reckoning to establish a new way of measuring what is good, fair, considered to be success, and beauty. Monique and I talk about looking at art through a new lens, a lens that doesn't immediately center European art.

We also talk about how to engage the local community in events that are designed to bring awareness to the inequities that exist in our world while encouraging conversations that begin to bridge the divides between us.

Mississippi may seem like an unlikely place for this to be happening but listen to Monique and you may decide that it's the perfect place, and a great model for conversations in other venues, maybe even one in your city or town. 

Monique Davis is Managing Director for the Center for Art and Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) and has recently been named the Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer. CAPE is a Kellogg Foundation funded initiative that uses artwork, exhibitions,  engagement with artists, and programming as a vehicle to have conversations about race and equity.  Monique is responsible for creating brave spaces  that expand the visitor's perspectives and reveals our shared humanity.  Monique is deeply committed to the belief that art has the power to transform and inform us. Monique is a CPA, and a graduate of Howard University. 

For a written transcript of this conversation click here.

Connect with Monique:
Mississippi Museum of Art Website

Credits:
Harmonica music courtesy of a friend.