The Fact of Blackness: Black Student Panel Discussion

In this panel discussion, moderated by Chasitie Brown (PhD candidate, Art History), four Black undergraduate students at The University of Texas at Austin discuss how they experience community and define their identities while navigating daily life at a predominantly White institution.

Attendees are invited to join for a reception following the event. Masks strongly encouraged.

This event is co-sponsored by the Visual Arts Center and Art Galleries at Black Studies. It is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Madison Cooper: (Untitled) Fanon, on view at the Visual Arts Center September 24 – December 3.

Bios

Jeremiah Baldwin (b. 2001, Corpus Christi, Texas) is a third-year student majoring in Government, Rhetoric and Writing, and African and African Diaspora Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Baldwin works as the Director of Operations for the Afrikan American Affairs (AAA) agency in the Multicultural Engagement Center (MEC) on UT's campus. He is also in the process of helping his honors program recruit a more diverse student population, and is developing a mentorship program for incoming Black students.

Chasitie Brown is a Ph.D. student in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin. She studies contemporary Caribbean and Latin American art with a focus on Cuba. Her dissertation examines how Cuban racial politics, following the Special Period, informed visual and exhibiting practices in Cuba. Other areas of interest include cultural policy, pan-Caribbean exchanges, artistic networks, and archival theory. She has presented her research at the College Art Association, the Caribbean Society Association, and the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. 

Madison Cooper (b. 2000, Dallas, Texas) is a fourth-year BFA student in Studio Art at The University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Museum of Color, Austin (2020) and Big Medium, Austin (2019). She has also participated in the Cohen New Works Festival at UT Austin (2021) and exhibited work in Hear and Now, a drive-through exhibition organized by Center Space Project for TEDxUTAustin (2021). Most recently, Cooper was a Summer 2021 fellow at the Ox-Bow School of Art.

Dominique LaVigne (b. 2000, Chicago, Illinois) is a fourth-year student in Journalism and Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin. Her audio stories on the Eyes of Texas and the Stan Richards School of Advertising following Richards' racist comments won 10th place in the audio category at the 2021 Hearst Journalism Awards. She is currently a screenwriting intern for Bill Duke’s Younite Network, and she is producing a podcast on the life of Tyler Campbell, son of football Hall of Famer Earl Campbell.

Chasity Webb (b. 2002, Dallas. Texas) is a second-year Advertising major at The University of Texas at Austin. She is currently the CEO of C.D. Lana Cosmetics and Apparel. She also serves as a Moody Mentor, participates in the XP3 Fellowship program, and is a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority.