Double Take: Noah Purifoy

Ohio State faculty from two different fields offer their perspectives on a Wexner Center exhibition in each Double Take gallery talk. Discuss the role of social justice and arts-based community-building in the work of Noah Purifoy with Joni Boyd Acuff, assistant professor in the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy, and Townsand Price-Spratlen, associate professor in the Department of Sociology.

Coeditor of the acclaimed book Multiculturalism in Art Museums Today, Acuff continues to research and teach on related topics, including critical race theory in art education and culturally responsive teaching and curriculum development. She also has 11 years of art teaching experience in a variety of settings, including students with special needs and students who identify as LGBTQ. Price-Spratlen is an urban sociologist and the author of the forthcoming book Reconstructing Rage: Transformative Reentry in the Era of Mass Incarceration, a close study of a grassroots organization working to help former felons avoid the “revolving door” effect of prisons and build community relationships. Noah Purifoy was a pioneer in bringing art programs into prisons in the 1970s in California through the state’s arts council.