A multidisciplinary showcase from the artists and scholars of the full-time faculty and staff at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design.

The line “to free this dream.” is borrowed from the last stanza in DC-poet Essex Hemphill’s American Wedding and is a prophetic reminder that those in power will always underestimate those on the ground, in part, because they refuse to look closely—to see; us. Often using strategies of reduction, via language, they assume we will make ourselves small and hold still– protecting ourselves from being buried in an avalanche of words, images, and media. That we will arrest ourselves in motion while they shore up their own positions. 

And yet, within these very walls, directly across the street from a seat of power, faculty, staff, and students of the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design come together daily, to write, make, exchange, build, perform, sing, play, fail, grow, learn, move, and voice through creative and academic research across generations, demographics, belief systems, and cultural experiences—whether they see us, or not. 

to free this dream. is evidence that there is a space for us all here—to be. We make and remake this space every semester, over years, decades. In this space, we come together, moving through the every day and building practices of choice in each studio or archive, on each stage or book, right across the street from those who overlook us. In doing so, we cannot help but create our own irrefutable terms–building meaning and transforming through systemic reduction, like a poem. Like a nation. It is as artists and scholars and communities do. Our irreducibility is material, source, or chord—and is our refutation.

Contributors are full-time faculty and staff of the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design: 

Aasawari Kulkarni, Alessandra Echeverri, Allyson Vieira, Andrea Dietz, Anna Jayne Kimmel, Babette Pendleton, Bella Maria Varela, Bibi Obler, Maria del Carmen Montoya, Caroline Casey, Catherine Anderson, Clement Akpang, Daniel Jonas, Dean Kessmann, Douglas Boyce, Douglas Crawford, Em Petro, Heather Stebbins, Isaiah Aladejobi, James Huckenpahler, Joe Bradley, Kaitlin Jencso, Kamille Jackson, Kerry McAleer-Keeler, Kiara Rivera, Kirk Kristlibas, Laura Schiavo, Lauren Onkey, Lisa Lipinski, Loren Kajikawa, Marc Choi, Mary Coughlin, Matt Eich, Maurice Tyree, Max Van Balgooy, Melina Misri, Michele Carlson, Nick Hemenway, Nidhi Singh Rathore, Ning Yu, Paul Reuther, Siobhan Rigg, Stephanie Travis, Susan Sterner, Suse Anderson

Organized by Michele Carlson (Program Head, Studio Arts and Associate Professor, Printmaking)