Image from previous Art & Education for Social Justice Symposium in Athens, Georgia at Ciné. Courtesy of 2025 conference organizer and PhD student in art education Lauren Copelan.

The Art Education area of the Lamar Dodd School of Art presents the 2025 Art & Education for Social Justice Symposium at the school's main building on UGA's east campus in partnership with the UGA School of Social Work from February 7-9, 2025. The Art & Education for Social Justice Symposium (AESJ) provides an opportunity to gain insight into a range of practices aligned with social justice, education, and the arts and aims to start a conversation across disciplinary areas.

Lamar Dodd School of Art faculty, students, and staff on the organizing committee include Associate Professor of Art Education Lynn Sanders-Bustle, Associate Professor of Art and Design James Enos, Winnie Chandler Distinguished Professor of Art Mira Kallio-Tavin, PhD students in Art Education Lauren Copelan and Soude Dadras, undergraduate art education student Lyla Lalani, and Lamar Dodd School of Art Development Officer Kate Arnold. The symposium will feature the work of various Lamar Dodd School of Art faculty and staff, as well as scholars, artists, community leaders, and practitioners from around the world.

The goal of this symposium is to include and amplify voices that are often on the margins of academia and to share the theories, methodologies, and results of art and education practices that strive to have a direct public impact.The symposium will focus on the guiding question: How are art and education inspiring, affecting, and promoting social change?

Image from previous Art & Education for Social Justice Symposium in Athens, Georgia at Ciné. Courtesy of Lauren Copelan.

Inspired by the work of a range of theorists, contemporary practices suggest that art can support the development of oppositional knowledge by inciting imaginative re-envisioning of the past, present, and future. The creative work of doing and making in communities can turn art practice into public praxis, suggesting transformative ways of being together in the world.

For more information and to register, visit arts4justice.com