2023 ASN Annual Conference: Birmingham, Alabama

As a founding member institution and site of one of its first conferences, the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA) and City of Birmingham welcome the return of the ASN Annual Conference.  Birmingham’s historical connection to the Civil Rights Movement, the role of the arts and arts education in the city’s revitalization, and ASFA’s location and mission at the intersection of these is an irresistible and urgent moment.  The city has recreated itself and matured into a community that acknowledges and embraces the impact of its past, both negative and positive, and in 2023 will commemorate the 60th anniversary of 1963’s world-changing events and has proclaimed October as social justice month. In partnership with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, 16^th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham Museum of Art, Equal Justice Initiative Museum and Memorial, and Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema this year’s conference celebrates the challenges and opportunities we share to do better, be better, and lead the way in education towards antiracism and equity.

After decades of real and perceived progress since the Civil Rights Movement, the equity achievable through anti-racism remains unrealized.  While anti-racism is sometimes realized in individuals and interpersonal dynamics, institutions, structures, and systems struggle to embody transformation.  We wrestle with turning concepts into actions and outcomes and moving beyond bold decisions and changing practices to radical choices and redesigning systems.  Ibram Kendi explains that “to be anti-racist...requires a radical reorientation of our consciousness.”  While we are joyous when we achieve wide-spread, shared reorientation in our collective thinking, practices, and creative environments, arts schools and organizations must strive to always share this consciousness in everything we do, in everything we are.

This year’s conference will provide opportunities to come together and candidly acknowledge these struggles, explore our successes and failures, to share and learn from our experiences, and better equip us all to reorient our consciousness.