Virtual Exhibit Tour: “Protest and Promise”
with Christi Rentsch Moraga ’76
Docent, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Wednesday, April 7, 5:30pm, via Zoom
EVENT DETAILS
Christi Rentsch Moraga, a 1976 graduate of Middlebury and a member of the Docent Council at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT, will lead Friends and Student Friends of the Middlebury College Museum of Art on a virtual tour of Protest and Promise: Selections from the Contemporary Art Collection, 1963–2019, a recent Wadsworth exhibit. Protest and Promise presents works of art that draw from real-life struggles for equity in racial, gender, and sexual orientation and serve as a form of activism, criticism, and empowerment to confront longstanding injustices and social disparities with an eye to systemic transformations and a more hopeful future. Ms. Moraga’s talk will include works by Kehinde Wiley, Elizabeth Catlett, Vanessa German, Emma Amos, Judy Baca, and Enrique Chagoya.
Pre-registration is required for this virtual event. Pre-registered attendees will receive the Zoom link via email 24 hours in advance of the talk with a follow-up reminder one hour before the talk.
Email the Museum to Pre-Register for the Event
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Christi Rentsch Moraga graduated from Middlebury College in 1976 and received her MA in Spanish from Middlebury’s Madrid program in 1977. She was a Catherine Davis recipient for Peace that enabled her to study Portuguese on campus in the summer of 2008. She taught French and Spanish in Connecticut and abroad for 36 years. In 2007, Christi was named the ACTFL Northeast World Language Teacher of the Year. While teaching at West Woods Upper Elementary School in Farmington, Connecticut, she created the popular “Taste of Languages Club” and in 2014, she initiated the “Diversity and Inclusion Ambassadors” of fifth and sixth graders from Farmington and Hartford to learn strategies to stamp out bullying and racism.
After retiring in 2016, her number one item on her bucket list was to become a docent at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, to fulfill one of her lifelong interests in the history of art and culture. Presently, she is a member of a subgroup of the Docent Council that regularly discusses DEAI issues in the Wadsworth Atheneum and museums around the country.
ABOUT THE WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART
The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art gallery in the United States, founded in 1842 by Daniel Wadsworth. The Wadsworth began purchasing major works of art at its inception and has received generous donations from celebrity Hartford families such as the Colts, the Morgans and the Goodwins. In the 1920s and 30s, the visionary art director, Chick Austin, led the museum to acquire both baroque and 20th century greats such as Caravaggio, Picasso, and Dalí. Visitors are drawn to the fine collection of the Hudson River School as well as European and contemporary art. In 1987, the Amistad Center for Art & Culture entered a partnership with the Wadsworth. A collection of 7,000 items of art, artifacts, and popular culture objects that document the people of African American heritage was added to the Wadsworth’s encyclopedic collection of nearly 50,000 objects.
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Middlebury College Museum of Art
Mahaney Arts Center
72 Porter Field Road
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 443-5007 • museum@middlebury.edu • museum.middlebury.edu