Things to Do, Feb. 20-27


William Staffeld/AAP
"Will Cotton: Vistas of Candy Land" is on display in the John Hartell Gallery in Sibley Dome through March 20.

Hip-hop and police panel

The Cornell Hip Hop Collection, the Coalition of Pan-African Scholars at Cornell and the Southside Community Center will present a panel on community-police relations in the context of the language and history of hip-hop, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Southside Community Center, 305 S. Plain St., Ithaca. Free and open to the public.

The event, “WOOP WOOP! That’s the Sound of da Police!” (from the rap song by KRS-One) will feature open, frank conversation between hip-hop artists, scholars and law enforcement personnel, joining the national dialogue in the wake of recent incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, and on Staten Island.

Panelists include retired Ithaca Police Department Lt. Marlon Byrd; hip-hop scholars Jennifer Lynn Stoever of Binghamton University and Sean Eversley Bradwell of Ithaca College’s Center for the Study of Culture Race and Ethnicity; and hip-hop artists Jay High (Josh Higgins) of Ithaca band The Gunpoets, MoneyMars, Vincente “DJ Split Image” Sierra, Bravo Blane, San Williams, Roc-E Ramsey (Eric Walker) and Bboy Crunch (Imani Hall), president of the Ground Up Crew. 

Oscar night

Cornell Cinema and the Bear’s Den Pub are hosting an Oscar Party, Feb. 22 at 6 p.m., with free viewing of the Academy Awards telecast starting at 7 p.m. at the pub in Willard Straight Hall’s Ivy Room.

The event will feature ballots for guessing the winning Oscar nominees, Oscar Bingo with cinema-related prizes, and free food including cheese plates, veggies, dumplings, cupcakes, hot chocolate and mocktails.

Befitting Oscar night, come dressed as your favorite actor or any red carpet-worthy attire.

Fighting for rights

Human rights official Sarah E. Mendelson will give a talk on campus, “Why Governments Are Targeting Civil Society and What Social Scientists Can Do About It,” Feb. 23 at 4:30 p.m. in Lewis Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Free and open to the public. Presented by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and its Foreign Policy Distinguished Speaker Series.

Mendelson is a senior adviser and director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) new human rights initiative. She served at the U.S. Agency for International Development 2010-14 as deputy assistant administrator responsible for democracy, human rights and governance in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance.

At CSIS 2007-10, she directed the Human Rights and Security Initiative and was a senior fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program, which she joined in 2001. Her research has included work on public opinion in Russia on the war in Chechnya, military and police abuse, health issues, identity in the North Caucasus region and human trafficking.

Cotton’s candy

Since the late 1990s, artist Will Cotton has created dramatic, atmospheric paintings of gingerbread structures in edible environments, working from models in his New York City studio and fabricating miniature worlds with skills gained in cooking classes.

A taste of his work is on display in “Will Cotton: Vistas of Candy Land,” through March 20 in John Hartell Gallery, Sibley Dome. The gallery is open weekdays, with a public reception March 6 at 5 p.m.

Cotton keeps a vintage Candy Land board game in his studio for inspiration and creates architectural forms as part of a complete territory where Candy Land locales – Molasses Swamp, Candy Cane Forest, Gum Drop Mountain – are realized with deadpan seriousness.

His work is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian and the Seattle Art Museum. The exhibition is curated by visiting associate professor Mark Morris, director of exhibitions and events for the College of Architecture, Art and Planning.

Love lessons

How do we know if someone we have fallen in love with is the one? How can two very different people come together and create a relationship that lasts a lifetime?

Professor of human development Karl Pillemer answers many such questions in his new book “30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage” and in a Chats in the Stacks book talk, Feb. 25 at 4 p.m. in the Stern Seminar Room, 160 Mann Library. Free and open to the public; books available for purchase and signing, and refreshments served.

Compiled from interviews with 700 elders, the book is the most detailed survey of long-married people ever conducted, with narratives offering wisdom from those who have made love and commitment work. Pillemer covers such topics as communicating in constructive ways, keeping the spark alive and learning how to accept your partner as he or she is. See the Legacy Project and a recent Inside Cornell talk for more about his work.

Pillemer also is the author of “30 Lessons for Living” (2011); founder and director of the Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging and a professor of gerontology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

‘Bridge to Freedom’

The John Henrik Clarke Africana Library presents a free screening of the Eyes on The Prize [CU1] documentary “Bridge to Freedom, 1965 (Selma),” followed by a discussion, Feb. 25 at 5 p.m. at the Africana Studies and Research Center, 310 Triphammer Road. Open to the public.

A highlight of the documentary is the 54-mile march to protest an activist’s murder and state laws and violence in Alabama that kept African-Americans from voting. About 525 peaceful marchers were assaulted by Alabama state police near the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside Selma.

The discussion, facilitated by Africana Library director Eric Kofi Acree, includes Cornell professors Riché Richardson and Russell Rickford and civil rights activist Dorothy Cotton, who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders as educational director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1960 to 1968.

Co-presented by the Africana Center and Ujamaa Faculty Fellow Program.

Siegel selects

American artist and filmmaker Amie Siegel will be on campus Feb. 26-27 to present four programs at Cornell Cinema.

The featured program is “Provenance,” Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Free advance tickets are available at the Willard Straight Hall Resource Center ticket desk. Siegel also introduces her films “Black Moon/Winter” and “DDR/DDR” Feb. 26, and “The Architects” Feb. 27.

Recently on view in a Metropolitan Museum of Art show probing questions of cultural heritage, commodity fetishism and the fickleness of the art market, “Provenance” concerns an emblem of mid-century modernism: furniture designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for their utopian conception for the Indian city of Chandigarh.

Siegel’s visit and two related film series, The Films of Amie Siegel and Amie Siegel Selects, are supported and presented by the Atkinson Forum in American Studies. For the latter series, Siegel curated several films sharing connections with her expansive body of work, including Chantal Akerman’s “The Rendezvous of Anna” Feb. 25, and Valie Export’s “Invisible Adversaries” March 3.

On stage

The Department of Performing and Media Arts present Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” Feb. 26-28 and March 6-7 in the Schwartz Center’s Flex Theatre. Shows are at 7:30 p.m., with one matinee March 7 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $13, $11 for students and senior citizens.

Also at the Schwartz Center: Staged readings of winning student plays and screenplays from the Heermans-McCalmon Writing Competition, Feb. 27 at 4:30 p.m. in the Class of ’56 Dance Theatre. Free and open to the public. The Heermans-McCalmon Awards were established in the bequest of Forbes Heermans (Class of 1878) in memory of Cornell professor of speech and drama George McCalmon. The competition grants first- and second-place prizes for original screenplays and stage plays written by students.

Media Contact

Joe Schwartz