ABOUT ME
I PLAY . . . I LEARN . . . I TEACH . . . I MAKE ART . . . I FIGHT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
"I do not want to show things but to give people the desire to see." ---Agnes Varda
"Cry out as if you have a million voices! It is silence that kills the world." -- Catherine of Siena
To be playful and serious at the same time is possible, and it defines the ideal mental condition. - John Dewey
Bio
Dr. Jjenna Hupp Andrews is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Mott Community College in Flint Michigan, where she teaches Sculpture, Art Foundations, and Art Appreciation courses.
Dr. Andrews received her BFA in Metalsmithing/3D and MFA in Sculpture from Central Michigan University. She earned her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a concentration Humanities and Society and a focus on visual/media culture and critical visual literacy at Union Institute & University. She was a Lecturer II in the Department of Fine Arts & Art History at The University of Michigan - Flint, for over 13 years, and adjunct faculty at Delta College for over 12 years, where she taught a variety of Studio Art, Art History, and Art Appreciation courses. In addition to trying to keep up with her three daughters and husband, she is a mixed media and installation artist working mostly with a variety of fibers, metals, and found materials. Her sculptural work uses the figural form to explore empathy and one's skin as a permeable membrane allowing for varying intensities of connection between the self and the other. This focus has manifested through her sculptural and installation work dealing with water issues in Flint, in Michigan, and in the country as a whole. Her current work is turning to the crisis of refugees of war around the world and at our own borders. “Suffer the Little Children…” started as is a series of portraits of children in Syria, Iraq, Gaza, and Yemen war zones and refugee camps, but is moving into participatory installations engaging the public with issues of refugee human rights happening at our own borders. She has also been working on a series of drawings titled SAYHERNAME, which is an ongoing series of portraits of Trans women of color who have been murdered in 2017 - 2019. Dr. Andrews' interdisciplinary visual and scholarly research interests focus on the social efficacy of visual and performance art as well as visual/media literacy in higher education, the intersections between the fine art and media realms, and how visual art and media can be used to engage with diversity/difference and most importantly, with issues of social justice. Jjenna's focus as a scholar-educator is always on how we can best facilitate student learning, critical thinking, and students' engagement with the world around them and how they can make a difference in this world. |
Flint Pieta Suffer the little children: War
Lifeblood Exhibition Suffer the little children: Guns |
