Berry College welcomes leading contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura on March 23 as this year’s speaker for the Cecil B. Wright III Integrity in Leadership Lecture.
Fujimura’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 6 p.m. in the College Chapel. In his lecture, “A Kintsugi Journey: A Theology of Making,” he will discuss how beauty emerges from brokenness and the common call we have to create beauty and bring justice.
The next day, March 24 at 6 p.m., Makoto Fujimura and his wife, Haejin Shim Fujimura, will conduct a seminar, “Beauty + Justice” at the Christopher Browning Pavilion at Oak Hill. The seminar is also free and open to the public.
As a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts from 2003-2009, Fujimura served as an international advocate for the arts, speaking with decision makers and advising governmental policies on the arts. In 2014, the American Academy of Religion named him its “2014 Religion and the Arts” award recipient. Fujimura is also the recipient of the 2023 Kuyper Prize. He has had numerous museum exhibits including Tikotin Museum in Israel and Gonzaga Jundt Museum.
Educated bi-culturally between the U.S. and Japan, he graduated from Bucknell University and received an M.F.A. from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with a Japanese Governmental Scholarship. His thesis painting was purchased by the university, and he was invited to study in the Japanese Painting Doctorate program. More info can be found at www.makotofujimura.com.
Fujimura’s process driven, refractive “slow art” has been described by the New York Times as “a small rebellion against the quickening of time.” The Martha Berry Museum is featuring Fujimura’s art in the exhibit "Waterflames and Walking on Water" that runs through April 15 and admission is free. Fujimura began the “Waterflames” series after becoming a survivor of Sept. 11, 2001 and “Ground Zero” resident, as his daily effort to turn flames of destruction into flames of sanctification. The “Walking on Water” series also began as an elegy to the victims of March 11, 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, to ask the question, “can we walk on water?”
This annual lecture series supports the mission of the Berry Center for Integrity in Leadership to empower the community to embody highly valued and widely applicable leadership knowledge, skills, and values. "Integrity in Leadership" is a whole person, lifelong process to form and master the head, heart, and hands to work in mutually reinforcing ways that inspire emulation and generate collaborative excellence.
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