Panel Discussion + Reception: “Parking Lot Space: Artworks by Kenneth Reams”

The ARTx3 Campus will host a panel discussion in conjunction with the exhibition Parking Lot Space: Artworks by Kenneth Reams. The panel will touch on topics dealing with the arts, activism, and community outreach. 

The panel is at 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1, at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas. The event is free and the public is encouraged to attend. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.

An opening reception for the exhibition will follow at 5:30 p.m.

The panelists are:

• Tavante Calhoun, chief executive officer of the Boys and Girls Club of Jefferson County in Pine Bluff. Calhoun will moderate the panel.
• Nick Brown, program advisor for the Arkansas State Personnel Development Grant at the Office of Innovation. Brown previously taught high school communications, speech and debate, and science in both Arkansas and Louisiana. 
• Saskia Keeley, an award-winning photojournalist, documentarian, peace activist, speaker, and creator of photography workshops that aim to bridge divides. She lives in New York.
• Kathy McGregor, founder and national project director of Prison Story Project, a storytelling project that benefits incarcerated women and men. She has been giving a voice to those silenced by prison through the healing art of story. She lives in Fayetteville.
• Ndume Olatushani, a Colorado man who spent 28 years incarcerated — 20 of which were on death row — for a crime he did not commit. It took him, his wife Anne-Marie, and his lawyer David Herrington 20 years to set him free. He’s been a free man since June 2012.
• Patrice Williams, theater instructor at Little Rock Central High School. She also led a 2024 summer camp at the ARTx3 Campus, focusing on the children’s book “Kenneth’s Big Choice,” written by Reams and his wife, Isabelle Reams.

The ARTx3 Campus’ Parking Lot Space: Artworks by Kenneth Reams is an exhibition focused on providing a safe space to consider the impacts of the choices we make, the lasting impacts they create, and how you can use that insight to guide your pathway more positively within your family, community, and most importantly, yourself, through art, when confronted with the critical decisions that many youths are confronted with daily in our society.

This exhibition serves as an opportunity to engage with the conversations that are difficult to have, but are critical for growth, direction and the health of our communities.

The Arts & Science Center invites the community to engage with the exhibition and panel discussion, and we remain committed to respect, inclusivity, and open discourse.

If you have an exhibition idea that you would like to share with us, please let us know by submitting them here.

Parking Lot Space is on view from Feb. 1 to July 26, 2025, in ASC’s William H. Kennedy Jr. Gallery. The exhibition and panel are made possible by a Kenneth Reams Arts for Justice grant. 

For more information, contact Haynie at khaynie@artx3.org or call 870-536-3375.