A worldwide movement for social change, the Human Library is designed to build a positive framework for conversations that can challenge stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue. Sign up in the Grand Pavilion for a 20-minute conversation with human “books” from our campus and local community, and learn about their point of view.
“Book” titles include:
Undocumented and Unafraid
Baltimore Cop
Russian Scientist in DC
Soul & Ink will provide a fun screen printing activation that blurs the line between art and audiences. Participants can choose between four custom design art pieces specially created for NextNOW Fest!
Maryland Night Live brings together the University of Maryland's best comedians and musicians for a hilarious night of sketches, stand-up comedy and music!
Created by University of Maryland (UMD) and Bowie State University (BSU) students and faculty following the murder of Lt. Richard Collins III, the Unity Mural was conceived to take a stand against racism and violence, reflecting upon themes of unity, peace and justice.
Submergence is a large, immersive, walkthrough experience that uses many thousands of individual points of suspended light to create feelings of presence and movement within physical space. As you enter the piece, you are walking into a space occupied by both real and virtual components, and you can affect both!
From the refrigerator to the computer screen, from the purse to the bedroom door, to-do lists, commands, reminders, mantras and more have graced these tiny 3×3 inch squares all over the globe. To Do was first installed in May of 2006 on Crosby Street in New York City and has since been installed across the United States, and around the world.
For the project Connect the Dots, Illegal Art asks participants to use a colored pencil or marker, all starting from the same circle, marked “Me,” and make a continuous line through a number of choices, indicated by vertically organized circles, such as age, languages spoken, political leanings, dietary preferences or whether they like beverages with ice or at room temperature. This will create a multi-colored stream of lines that will all end up in the same circle, marked “Us.”
Create your own erasure poetry with members of the Jiménez-Porter Writers' House using provided magazines, books and other materials! Erasure poetry, also known as blackout poetry, involves marking out or erasing words in an existing text source to create new, original poems.
The current exhibit at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library features Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), who was one of the first seven people to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and known as the first internationally recognized American composer. The artists' residency and workshop in New Hampshire (known now as MacDowell) is named after him. The exhibit showcases the life and works of this pianist and composer with scores, letters, and photographs from the Special Collections in Performing Arts (an archive housed in MSPAL).
The Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library is giving away surplus donations of not just books, but also CDs & vinyl LPs! It’s all FREE … while supplies last.
