On Wednesday, Feb. 19, Macalester students, faculty and staff gathered in James R. Smail Gallery for the annual Leola Johnson Lecture in media and cultural studies. This year’s speaker was Macalester’s creative change maker in residence Maya Washington, who delivered her lecture “Story as Sanctuary.”
John Kim, professor of media and cultural studies, introduced the Leola Johnson Lecture, which is named in honor of Associate Professor Emeritus Leola Johnson, one of the founders of Macalester’s media and cultural studies department.
“[Johnson] retired in 2020 and was the epitome of the scholar teacher,” Kim said. “She worked closely and had a compassionate relationship with her students over the 20 years that she taught in the department, and she always brought innovative ideas to the classroom. It is in that spirit that we continue to bring talks, lectures and workshops in her honor to Macalester.”
Washington is an award winning director, filmmaker, actress and writer. She is the creative director of Running Water Entertainment, LLC, an Independent Film, Television, Digital, Theatre and Literary Media Organization.
Hui Wilcox, Dean of the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship (IGC), introduced Washington as a creative who aligns with the IGC’s values of “interdisciplinary knowledge production, embodied ways of knowing and building communities and belonging without othering.”
Washington opened by sharing a work-in-progress excerpt from a poetry film — which moves from the price of eggs to existential questions, in a conversation between the speaker and the sky — to illustrate the complexities of sanctuary. After her reading, Washington named some of the themes, such as consumption, dissemination and creation, that she explored through the various stories and experiences in her lecture.
In 2018, Washington balanced working on “Through the Banks of the Red Cedar,” a short film delving into the history of football with a collaborative gallery project with photojournalist Tom Baker and sports photographer Hannah Foslien.
The film included interviews of her father and his teammates about their collegiate football career at Michigan State University and professional career with the Minnesota Vikings in the 1960s and ’70s. In 1963, Washington’s father Gene Washington became part of America’s first desegregated collegiate football team. However, she faced problems including all of her content in the short film.
“There was all of this material on the cutting room floor — conversations about what it is to be an aging football hero in America, what it means to be a Black aging football hero in America,” Washington said. “…And so [we had] this idea of having these images of distinguished older men in suits or more formal attire, next to fitness models showing off their fitness … in a different iteration, than what my dad and his teammates looked like at that time.”
Their project, timed to coincide with Minneapolis hosting Super Bowl LII at the US Bank Stadium, displayed current images of Minnesota Vikings players who tromped the fields in the early ’70s, alongside their current counterparts. After initially rejecting their pitch, Hennepin Theatre Trust reached back out to Washington, Baker and Foslien with an offer to display their gallery on the side of Mayo Clinic Square in downtown Minneapolis.
“What went from printing at a smaller scale and maybe getting one panel of one window in a coffee shop became [an installation on] multiple sides of that Mayo Clinic square building,” Washington said. “For me, in terms of sanctuary: it’s a public art space where you can have a conversation with someone who is walking their stroller down the street.”
After showing an excerpt from this documentary Washington discussed one of the other Civil Rights related creative projects she has gotten to participate in: The Rise and Remember concert at George Floyd Square on May 25, 2021.
Rise and Remember is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the space and memory of George Floyd. Along with being the caretakers of the memorial at the intersection of 38th and Chicago, the organization hosts a memorial concert every year on the anniversary of Floyd’s death. Washington was the creative director and co-producer of the first concert in 2021.
Reflecting on that memorial, Washington emphasized the community that kept each other safe, despite the risk of a violent response to the event.
“We had this concert in an autonomous zone, and we only had ourselves to keep ourselves safe,” Washington said. “There was no police presence. We were our security… We did think it was the apocalypse, and I thought, hey, if I’m going down, I’d rather do it alongside community.”
Moving from reflecting on her past projects, Washington highlighted how her personal experiences and stories are shaping her current collaborations and projects, including one with the Macalester community.
After her mother’s passing, Washington spent time in Cancún, Mexico for her mother’s birthday. The trip overlapped with observances of Día de los Muertos, as well as All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, which Washington grew up honoring in her Creole cultural ties to Catholicism.
In Cancún, Washington visited a church honoring María Desatadora de Nudos, or Our Lady the Undoer of Knots. The depiction of Mary, a major religious figure in Christianity, as María Desatadora de Nudos originated in the 1700s and was commissioned to bring relief to a couple having conflict. Washington described it as having the effect “of releasing people from the pains and the troubles of the world,” or untying the knots that bind one.
At the sanctuary, Washington also encountered a display that held past visitors’ prayers to Mary in the form of white ribbons and prayers of gratitude represented through colorful ribbons.
Washington was inspired by this idea, and on Friday, Feb. 21, members of the Macalester community were invited to a creative warming space outside of Markim Hall, featuring an art installation and open mic which she hosted. The art installation included a large structure, serving as a space for community members to tie their own colorful ribbons, featuring wishes for humanity.
Closing out her lecture, Washington emphasized the importance of stories and sanctuary as human connection.
“I think we might start with telling the stories we leave behind for free,” Washington said. “Believe that there are people in the future worth giving those stories to, but also to tell the story for yourself. Tell the story for yourself. Tell it so that you can sleep at night, so that people you leave behind know something real about you. We are craving stories of heroism that we can put faith in.”
