Season Talks
Season Talks, presented in partnership with the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, the College for Creative Studies’ Woodward Lecture Series, and Season Fair, is a one-day public symposium focused on contemporary art and the ideas, questions, and practices shaping the field today. Through a series of moderated conversations and presentations featuring artists, writers, scholars, curators, and other cultural practitioners, the program creates space for dialogue, reflection, and exchange.
Date:
Thursday, September 10, 2026
11:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Location:
College for Creative Studies
Walter and Joseph Ford Campus
Wendell W. Anderson, Jr. Auditorium
201 E Kirby St • Detroit, MI 48202
Admission:
Free and open to the public
Apertures and Affect
12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
This conversation uses, as a point of departure, Toni Morrison’s well renowned theory and praxis of (re)memory, which names the phenomena of personal and collective memories that exist not only in our internal mind's eye, but also in physical space, infrastructure and familial spaces. In their own distinct ways, these three lens-based artists grapple with personal and collective memories through their filmmaking practices while also recasting archival imagery within new theoretical structures of time, space, and spirituality.
Speakers
Taylor Aldridge
Executive Director
Modern Ancient Brown Foundation
Moderator
Jen Everett
Artist
Ricky Weaver
Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, Assistant Professor
bree gant
Artist
Alternative Institutions
1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
The interlocutors gathered for this conversation contribute to Detroit’s arts ecology and creative economy in a variety of ways, including maintaining alternative spaces that foster incubation, experimentation, growth, and innovation for artists throughout the city. Often operating in silos and out of the mainstream institutional threads of the arts community here, these leaders––through their respective organizations––affirm the various types of communal spaces needed for artists to thrive. Panelists will also offer greater reflection on the distinct art economies that exist in Detroit and how they seek to contribute to their growth.
Speakers
janera solomon
Founder & CEO
ARTPOWER
Moderator
Cézanne Charles
Partner
rootoftwo
Wes Taylor
Co-Founder
Talking Dolls Studio
Claire Gato
Co-Director
BULK Space
Seeing Sonics
3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
How can visual forms elicit effects of aural experience? The panelists for this talk work across both sonic architectures and visual forms. They will discuss the sculptural qualities and sensibilities of sound, how sound can shape physical space, and how the panelists’ relationships to sound and visual forms run concurrent with one another.
Speakers
DeForrest Brown, Jr.
Rhythmanalyst, writer, musician, and curator
Moderator
KESSWA
Modern Ancient Brown Alumnus
Sterling Toles
Visual/Sonic Artist
Punk Sensibilities & Curatorial Craft
Lecture by essence harden
4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
essence harden is the senior curator at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California. Essence is known for their commitment to rigorous experimentation and collaboration with and alongside prolific artists such as Diedrick Brackens, Lauren Halsey and Adee Roberson. Essence has curated throughout a range of exhibition forms, including museums, galleries, public sites, and commercial fairs. Most notably, their recent curatorial projects include curating 2026 EXPO Chicago, the FOCUS section of Frieze Los Angeles, and co-curating the seventh iteration of the acclaimed 2025 Made in LA Biennial at the Hammer Museum, which featured 28 artists who have practiced across the greater Los Angeles area. For Season Talks, harden will talk about their curatorial methodologies, working with living artists, and distinct approaches to organizing conceptual frameworks in spaces of commerce.
Speakers
Commissioner & Cooperative Economies
Closing Remarks by Dejha Carrington
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Dejha Carrington is a Miami-based arts worker and founder of Commissioner, an art membership program that helps people collect the work of contemporary artists in their cities. Since 2017, Commissioner utilizes group economics to commission works of art for communities, organizations, and individuals. At Season Talks, Dejha will discuss her background in initiating this cooperative economic model, previous collaborations she’s carried out with Detroit-based artists and how Commissioner will expand beyond Miami, to Detroit, Philadelphia and Charlotte North Carolina in coming years. Ultimately outlining nuanced and more communal pathways for patronage and art ownership within art ecology.
Speakers
