About

Founder: Dr. María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair Professor of Fine Arts and Artist

The Engine for Art, Democracy, and Justice is a trans-institutional research initiative, and it is an ongoing collaboration between Fisk University, the Frist Art Museum, Millions of Conversations, and Vanderbilt University that explores creative approaches to living together in the South(s)!

my heart is strong because I walked on blistered feet exhibition by James Kuol Makuac, installation view. Photo by LeXander Bryant.

The 2024–2027 Public Programs and Engagement Series of the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ) at Vanderbilt University is organized around the thematic north star — Somewhere We Are Human — a collective vision for a time and space where no one’s humanity is ever in question. For Fall 2024-Spring 2027, the series looks at the city of Nashville and the American South through a lens of migration, exploring the ways immigrant communities have shaped the region’s history and are envisioning its future through art and activism.

Somewhere We Are Human is conceived and organized by Curator, Grace Aneiza Ali with the leadership of Professor María Magdalena Campos-Pons, EADJ Founder and Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair & Professor of Art, with support from the EADJ Team.

The Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ) at Vanderbilt University will host the exhibition — Resonance. The exhibition is scheduled to be on view at Fondazione Giorgio e Armanda Marchesani in Italy from May 10, 2026 – July 10, 2026.

It is an invitation to gather, to commune with, to listen deeply—for artists, curators, poets, performers, and scholars whose voices and perspectives resonate across time and geographies.

Our home for Resonance is the historic residence Fondazione Giorgio e Armanda Marchesani on Fondamenta Rossa in Dorsoduro. Imagined as an instrument, the palazzetto is transformed into a living forum — a space where ideas, artistic practice, and dialogue unfold over a season of performances, sonic sessions and poetic encounters, conversations and gatherings — each one another way of listening.

Resonance brings Vanderbilt and Nashville's creative community into conversation with global artists, curators, poets, performers, and scholars — creating a shared space for listening, collaboration, and new forms of artistic exchange.

Click Here for artist and participant list

Click Here for the schedule and events

The Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ) at Vanderbilt University will host the exhibition — Melungeon: Tamara Reynolds. The exhibition is scheduled to be on view at EADJ’s Begonia Labs from March 23, 2026 – June 26, 2026.

Melungeon is a portrait of Sneedville, Tennessee, a community associated with the Melungeons—a mixed-race people whose ancestry draws from African, Native American, and European lineages. Through Tamara Reynolds’s lens, their histories of migration, mixture, and myth emerge as a lived inheritance: layered, complex, and evolving.

The Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice (EADJ) at Vanderbilt University hosted the thematic exhibition — Prefabricating Solidarity: IMS-Žeželj Between Yugoslavia, Cuba, and Angola. The exhibition was on view at EADJ’s Begonia Labs from August 21, 2025 – December 5, 2025.

Prefabricating Solidarity was conceived and organized by a collaborative curatorial and authorial team, including Vladimir Kulić, Vesna Pavlović, Jelica Jovanović, Fredo Rivera, Ana Knežević, Emilia Epštajn.

Jeannette Ehlers performance, We’re Magic. We’re Real (These Walls) at Fisk University.

Jeannette Ehlers performed We’re Magic. We’re Real (These Walls) at Fisk University as part of EADJ’s 2022-2023 academic program “Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance”, conceived and curated by Selene Wendt under the leadership of the EADJ Founder, María Magdalena Campos-Pons. The program featured a series of panel discussions and artist activations that addressed social injustice and the lingering consequences of colonialism, with particular emphasis on artists from Africa and the African diaspora.

We’re Still Thinking, a Vanderbilt Student-led immersion project

We’re Still Thinking is a Vanderbilt student-led immersion project highlighting Blackness behind and in front of the camera through photoshoots. The project was created by Vanderbilt students Jeanne d’Arc Koffi, Igolo Stephine Ohalete, Les Taylor, and Sydney Featherstone. These students were mentored by a local photographer (LeXander Bryant), advised by the EADJ team on the Vanderbilt campus, and organized many volunteer models to capture a series of photographs.The pictures collectively share intimate portraits around themes like dorm life on the Vanderbilt campus for queer BIPOC students, dorm life for first-generation Americans, reflections on Black womanhood, and reflections on friendship and coupling.

We’re Still Thinking was part of the Spring 2024 exhibitions at EADJ’s Begonia Labs.

Graphic for Dikenga – Four Faces of the Sun by artist, Michelle Eistrup.

Michelle Eistrup’s DIKENGA – Four Faces of the Sun was a large-scale outdoor video installation at Fisk University’s John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library. It was a richly layered work centered around the ideology and symbolism of the Bakongo religion and the Kongo cosmogram, known as Dikenga.

It was part of EADJ’s 2022-2023 academic program “Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance” conceived and curated by Selene Wendt under the leadership of the EADJ Founder, María Magdalena Campos-Pons.