UW–Madison Division of the Arts to host Sri Vamsi Matta and Marlon F. Hall as 2023–24 Interdisciplinary Artists-in-Residence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 18, 2023

Media Contact: aryn kresol, Arts Residency Programs Coordinator at UW–Madison Division of the Arts, akresol@wisc.edu

URL: go.wisc.edu/Matta

Link to media assets: https://uwmadison.box.com/s/1c187t0l7tpdhunjhieqlfl8w0z6qj42 

Link to article: https://artsdivision.wisc.edu/2023/04/18/iarp-artists-2023-24-announcement/ 

UW–Madison Division of the Arts to host Sri Vamsi Matta and Marlon F. Hall as 2023–24 Interdisciplinary Artists-in-Residence

Madison, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of the Arts is excited to announce two artists selected for the Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program (IARP) for the 2023–24 academic year: Sri Vamsi Matta and Marlon F. Hall. Sri Vamsi Matta (Bengaluru, India)is the inaugural academic-year-long Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence. Marlon F. Hall (Tulsa, OK) is the Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence for the Spring 2024 semester.

While in residence, each artist will teach an interdisciplinary course and participate in public programming with campus and Madison communities. The Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program provides students with extended learning experiences with a working artist, increases diversity of teaching staff on campus and strengthens programmatic ties among individual departments, programs and other campus and community arts entities.

Beginning in August 2023, the Division of the Arts and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures will welcome Sri Vamsi Matta, a Bangalore-based theater and visual artist, to UW–Madison through May 2024. For the Fall 2023 semester, Vamsi’s residency will include teaching a 3-credit course, Whose Art Is It Anyway? Explorating Folk Performance from South Asia structured around central questions such as: What are some rules that govern performance culture globally? Who set these rules? Can they be broken? How? Throughout the course, students will examine the appropriation, weaponization, dilution or valuation of particular performance practices from historically marginalized South Asian and American artistic communities by dominant groups. The course will also juxtapose the history of these performance styles with models of contemporary artists in South Asia and the US who have subverted these “classical” forms for activism and political assertion. 

Vamsi’s residency will continue during the Spring 2024 semester with public programming with campus and Madison communities, and a residency-long engagement with a UW–Madison based theater and storytelling group, leading up to a final production entitled “BLUE.” An original musical written by residency lead Zara Chowdhary and Vamsi, “BLUE” will be devised in collaboration with First Wave Scholars, Indian and Indian American poets, Black, Brown and white musicians and artists. Dates for public programs are to be announced.

The residency is presented in partnership with the Division of the Arts and the Department Asian Languages and Cultures, with Jamal Jones, Assistant Professor, as lead faculty and Zara Chowdhary, Lecturer in Hindi, as residency lead. Co-sponsors for the residency are the Department of Theatre and Drama, Department of History, Center for Visual Cultures, Center for South Asia, Center for Humanities, International Learning Community, Center for Research on Gender and Women, and the Human Rights Program.

In January 2024, the Division of the Arts and the Art Department will welcome Marlon F. Hall as the Spring 2024 Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence, concurrently with Sri Vamsi Matta. Hall’s residency will include teaching a 3-credit course, The Olive Tree; Growing Community Engaged Storytelling from Irritation to Intrigue, centered in community art that nourishes social healing in Madison. The olive tree nourishes the soil it’s planted in just as much as the soil nourishes it. From social irritation to ethnographic intrigue to art-making innovation, the course will provoke questions like: What irritates you about society? How can we develop purposeful listening in the community? How can the responses to these questions become an art-making process? 

Throughout the course, students will explore topics such as the power of community meals, listening to community stories and creating ethnographic films, audio narratives and large-scale photography as community-based healing installations. The residency will also feature public programming with campus and Madison communities throughout the semester, including site-specific installations and film screenings to be exhibited in public spaces all over the city.  

The residency is presented in partnership with the Division of the Arts and the Art Department, with Faisal Abdu’Allah, Professor and Associate Dean of the Arts, as lead faculty.  

About the Artists

Sri Vamsi Matta, or simply Vamsi, is a Bangalore-based Theatre and Visual artist. His practice is influenced by his Dalit identity, experience and location. Dalit is the political identity of communities formerly known as “untouchable” and considered the lowest within the Hindu Caste System, and thus oppressed by its discriminatory scriptures, social structures and norms. The identity and histories of his community and family inform the questions, topics and mediums that Vamsi engages with through his work. As a student of science, Vamsi’s work is rooted in rigorous research. As the child of a writer, he has grown up around stories and finds that they are his route to not only entertain and educate but to organize people and challenge hegemonic and oppressive structures of power.

Marlon F. Hall is an artist and anthropologist whose work is rooted in social practice and grown from anthropological listening. Marlon integrates community engagement and storytelling as a process for cultivating healing in communities that have experienced political, cultural or systemic trauma. As a renowned art-making storyteller, he has served as a Lecturing Fellow for Duke Divinity Leadership Education, an Artist-in-Residence for the Princeton Theological Seminary and the Visual Anthropologist and Social Media Archivist for the Greenwood Art Project. He was recently named a Fulbright Specialist by the U.S. Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs and a 2021 Tulsa Artist Fellow. Currently, Marlon is engaged in Cultural Amnesia Therapy in Tulsa where he is working with local creatives and community advocates to help communities rebuild after the 1921 Race Massacre. His latest project features one of his carefully curated Amnesia Therapy Salon Dinners in partnership with The British Council and The Kenya Pavilion at the 2022  Venice Biennale. Through socially engaged art-installations, large-scale photography, ethnographic films shaped as visual poems and carefully designed salon dinners, his work focuses on revealing the resilient nature of the human spirit, using memory to inform imagination and helping communities reclaim their identity.

About the Presenters

The Division of the Arts’ Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program (IARP), originated through the Cluster Hiring Initiative of the Office of the Provost, brings innovative, world-class artists to the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. Since 1999, the program has hosted over 40 residencies involving more than 100 guest artists from 20 different countries, engaging over 60 university units and community organizations. All residencies center interdisciplinary arts, recognizing that interdisciplinarity can break down barriers and silos, advance intellectual artistic diversity and give opportunities to people who do not fit into the traditional modes of inquiry and practice (see the Division of the Arts’ guiding principle of The Arts for Everyone, Everywhere). The program often brings together artists, faculty, staff and students from various disciplines across the arts, sciences and humanities, sustaining the Division of the Arts’ mission tounify and catalyze the arts at UW–Madison.

Asian Languages and Cultures is home to nearly twenty faculty whose research and teaching specialities include the following: traditional medicine in India; the history of yoga; diversifying contemporary mindfulness practice with insights from Tibetan Buddhism; human rights in Thailand; Chinese ghost stories; traditional poetics and philology; sociolinguistics and discourse analysis of the Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian languages; analysis of classical Japanese tale fiction, early modern comedic narratives, manga, anime and Japanese counterculture.

The UW–Madison Art Department is a national leader in the cultivation and production of creative expression and the visual arts. The undergraduate and graduate degree programs set the practical, critical-thinking and collaborative foundation for students to excel in any area of artistic focus: painting, printmaking, graphic design, sculpture, ceramics, metalsmithing, glass, furniture-making, papermaking, photography, digital media, video, performance and more. For more than a century, the Art Department has set the standard for arts learning: established the first glass-blowing lab in the country; the printmaking programs are consistently ranked the best in the country; the art metals program is ranked among the top three; and it’s home to internationally acclaimed faculty members and visiting artists.

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Beyond Words Productions: Video created to help organization fundraise after total loss in fire

After a fire engulfed a building on South Park Street last month, the businesses inside lost everything. Many of them created GoFundMe links and were able to raise their goal amount… except for Fuegos Towing.

Beyond Words Productions wanted to do something to help them share their story so they could recover tens of thousands of dollars worth of materials they lost that their business insurance won’t cover.

Beyond Words Productions created this video to help them fundraise and share what happened and what they lost: https://youtu.be/r883JPpwD_E

One Community Bank Announces Future Cottage Grove Location

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Ameilia Abraham
One Community Bank
608-838-3141
aabraham@onecommunity.bank

One Community Bank Announces Future Cottage Grove Location

(April 2023) – As a growing organization, One Community Bank is proud to announce a new bank location in the Cottage Grove community. The new bank will be located at 1565 Landmark Drive between Commerce Parkway and Limestone Pass.

One Community Bank – Cottage Grove will offer full-service banking capabilities to current and future clients in Cottage Grove and surrounding communities. The new location will include a drive-through lane with a teller window and a remote interactive teller machine (ITM). The ITM will be available extended hours. The location will have several office spaces and a conference room for colleagues to serve clients. It will also include a welcoming spacious lobby for clients to enjoy.

Online account opening capabilities enable anyone to open an account on OCB’s website today, instead of waiting until the new Cottage Grove location opens.

“OCB believes in serving clients, supporting colleagues, and investing in our communities. We are proud to continue investing in our communities by establishing One Community Bank – Cottage Grove,” said Steve Peotter, President and CEO. “We have been fortunate to have worked closely with many Cottage Grove clients throughout the years. Those clients have encouraged us to bring OCB’s ‘Feel Good Banking’ to the greater Cottage Grove community and were instrumental in today’s announcement,” added Peotter.

One Community Bank is working closely with OPN Architects and Ideal Builders on the new 6,000 square foot location at Landmark Drive.

“With the official purchase of the property on Monday, March 27, we are ready to move forward with the next steps,” said Jeff Versluys, Executive Vice President and Chief Retail Officer. “We are thrilled to invite the community to our official groundbreaking event on Tuesday, April 25 at 4:00 PM. We also look forward to a ribbon cutting and opening our doors to serve the community in early 2024.”

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One Community Bank is one of the largest community banks in south central Wisconsin. The locally
owned bank has 10 bank locations and $1.8 billion in assets. It provides both personal and business
banking solutions, with an intense focus on serving clients, supporting colleagues, and investing in its
communities. Five years in a row named one of Madison’s best places to work, One Community Bank
serves the communities of Oregon, McFarland, Waunakee, Stoughton, Sun Prairie, Middleton, Adams,
Oxford, and Grand Marsh

Midwest Mujeres Elevating Local Women Even Higher

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Araceli Esparza
info@midwestmujeres.com
Midwest Mujeres, Founder
608-571-5182
www.eventsmidwestmujeres.com

Gregg Potter
gregg@projectkinect.com
Project Kinect
702-807-1607

MIDWEST MUJERES ELEVATING LOCAL WOMEN EVEN HIGHER
Join Midwest Mujeres for their iYo Quiero Dinero! Telling Our Stories Event!

Madison, Wisconsin, USA (April 11, 2023)  –  Midwest Mujeres (MWM) is announcing the third annual iYo Quiero Dinero! Telling Our Stories on Friday, June 16th, 2023, at the MyArts building (1055 E. Mifflin St.) at 7 PM. The event is about empowerment through stories of financial success and financial failures. The community is invited to celebrate local women of color on a journey to be public speakers and storytellers in this red carpeted extravaganza. The highlight of the evening will be the eight storytellers who have completed the Chingona Leadership program and will receive premium awards for their work. This year, we are honored to have Dr. Sagashus T. Levingston as a special guest, her message of using your social capital as a vehicle for your success is a perfect complement to our night of transformational stories.

“These are our stories, not just one single story of success and failure.”  Shares Midwest Mujeres founder, Araceli Esparza. “Telling Our Stories will highlight stories from local women of color, all orbiting work Midwest Mujeres has been involved in. Yes, we want economic independence but we also want to be valued. We always want to make money!”

Tickets to the event are $25 and can be purchased on Eventbrite (https://bit.ly/YoQuieroDinero2023) A full line up of the evening will be available in early May. Sponsorship opportunities are available. To find out more information and become a sponsor, email gregg@projectkinect.com.

More about the event’s history. The event directs focus on immigrant and first-generation individuals telling their stories that have helped propel them forward. Midwest Mujeres through podcasts, blogging and online forums has created a space of empowerment through stories of financial success and failures.  ‘Our Stories’  stands apart because our storytellers have gone from surviving to thriving to personal freedom. 

For more information about Midwest Mujeres, visit www.eventsmidwestmujeres.com

iYo Quiero Dinero! Telling Our Stories Event!

EVENT DETAILS

DETAILS

June 16, 2023

7pm

MyArts Building

1055 Mifflin St. Madison, WI 53703

TICKETS

$25

WHAT

A night of empowerment through stories of financial success and financial failures. Come celebrate local women of color on a journey to be public speakers and storytellers.

PROGRAM AND SPECIAL GUESTS

Available Early May

PARKING

Street Parking available. Parking also available in Lyric building adjacent to MyArts building.

IMPORTANT CONTACTS & LINKS

Video/Promo: Breyon “1neofmani” Sommerville lessworklifestyle@gmail.com  

Event Chair: Araceli – info@midwestmujeres.com

Event Spokesperson/sponsorship: Gregg Potter gregg@projectkinect.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MidWestMujeresMentoring

Volunteers:  info@midwestmujeres.com

WPS Health Solutions honored as a 2023 VETS Indexes 4 Star Employer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   

Contact: 
DeAnne Boegli
Vice President of Communications
608-512-5754
deanne.boegli@wpsic.com

WPS Health Solutions honored as a 2023 VETS Indexes 4 Star Employer

MADISON, Wis.—April 13, 2023—WPS Health Solutions has earned the VETS Indexes 4 Star Employer designation in the 2023 VETS Indexes Employer Awards. The award recognizes the organization’s commitment to recruiting, hiring, retaining, developing, and supporting veterans and the military-connected community.

“WPS Health Solutions stands out from the pack as one of the best employers nationwide for veterans, members of the National Guard and Reserves, and military spouses,” said George Altman, managing director of VETS Indexes. “As more and more employers recognize the cutting-edge technical skills and soft skills veterans bring to the workplace, the race to attract military-connected talent gets increasingly competitive. The number of organizations participating in the 2023 VETS Indexes Employer Awards more than doubled since last year—but even in this highly competitive environment, WPS Health Solutions distinguished itself as a leader among veteran employers and should be commended,” Altman said.

This year, a record number of 239 organizations participated in the VETS Indexes Employer Awards, more than double the 118 participants in 2022. Of those, VETS Indexes recognized 200 organizations across the following award levels: 5 Star Employer, 4 Star Employer, 3 Star Employer, and Recognized Employer. Not every responding organization made the cut—only those that demonstrated a strong commitment to veterans, members of the National Guard and Reserves, and military spouses. Participating organizations included companies large and small, government agencies and departments, nonprofit groups, colleges, and universities.

As the most objective and comprehensive evaluation of veteran employers, the VETS Indexes Employer Awards program has set a new standard in veteran employment data. These results have been featured on CNBC as well as military-specific outlets, including military.com. This in-depth survey and recognition program analyzes employers’ policies, practices, and outcomes in detail, across the following five categories:

• Veteran job candidate recruiting and hiring
• Veteran employee development and retention
• Veteran-inclusive policies and culture
• Support for members of the National Guard and Reserves
• Military spouse/family support

About WPS Health Solutions

Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation (WPS Health Solutions), founded in 1946, is a nationally regarded benefits administrator for a variety of U.S. government programs and a leading not-for-profit health insurer in Wisconsin. WPS Health Solutions serves active-duty and retired military personnel, seniors, individuals, and families in Wisconsin, across the U.S., and around the world. WPS Health Solutions, headquartered in Madison, Wis., has more than 2,700 employees. Within the enterprise, there are three divisions: WPS Government Health Administrators, WPS Military and Veterans Health, and WPS Health Insurance/WPS Health Plan/EPIC Specialty Benefits. For more information, please visit wpshealthsolutions.com.  

About VETS Indexes

VETS Indexes is a leading voice on veteran employment issues, overseeing the VETS Indexes Employer Awards, hosting the twice-yearly Employing U.S. Vets Conference, unearthing unique and unprecedented data on veteran employment through the Veteran Employment Benchmarking Service, and developing custom indexes, linked to financial products, that track the performance of the publicly traded companies that have established themselves as the best employers for veterans. 

The VETSX and VTRNIX indexes were created on the premise that the companies that make the best use of the highly talented, yet under-valued, talent pool that veterans represent will ultimately see a benefit to their bottom lines. The performance of the indexes has emphatically confirmed that thesis, outpacing the S&P 500.   

As the world’s first resource for U.S. veteran themed indexes, our mission is to provide innovative solutions that recognize the value created by the mission-critical mindset, unique skills, and specialized training that veterans bring to the workplace. Our mission also includes a commitment to always donate a significant portion (target of 20% and no less than 5%) of our net profits to charitable organizations that support veterans and their families.  

“SERVING THOSE WHO SERVED” – VETS Indexes provides a social and governance impact via those public companies that support the hiring and professional development of our military veterans.

Learn more about us at VETSIndexes.com and follow us on social media channels via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

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