Aug 19 2023
Season 4 Episode 44 Amber Ginsburg and Eric Wilkins
She is #DopePeopleAmber Ginsburg is a Chicago-based artist who teaches at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts. She creates site-generated projects and social sculptures that insert historical scenarios into present-day situations, as well as engages present-day histories to imagine alternative futures. Her background in craft orients her projects toward the continuities and ruptures in material and social histories. She often works with long-term and ongoing collaborators, and together they engage multiple communities and elicit working relationships with experts in the fields of botany, political activism, biology, legal scholarship and activism, and science fiction.Always interested in history, more recently, Amber has been drawn to imagined futures, specifically a future that includes human survival. Looking to past feminist strategies, including collective action and equity politics, she works in large-scale sculptural forms that allow audiences a role in thinking through the making or completing the work. The boundary between human and nonhuman agency is pressing thinner. She follows specific material lineages, sometimes a tree species, sometimes porcelain, to map our varied and complex relationships. In doing so, Amber works in concert with objects as collaborators, agent-provocateurs, and narrative instigators.He is #DopePeopleEric Wilkins is the founder of the Broken Winggz foundation.Their mission is to give support to people who are paralyzed from gunshots, their families, and the millions of people who are just tired of the shooting and want it to stop. They're joining together with various organizations and taking a stand.The founder of Broken Winggz is Eric Wilkins. He was shot and paralyzed in May of 1999. He was put in a wheelchair. Doctors told him that he would never walk again, and that killed his spirits. But after years of exercise, prayers, and dedication, he is up and walking around. He has braces on both of his legs that go down from his knees to the tip of his toes to keep his feet and legs straight; he uses a cane to assist him with walking. Since then, he has joined with other paralyzed young people to take a stand against gun violence. There are thousands of young men and women in wheelchairs that think they're alone, but with Broken Winggz, they're never alone; they're in this together.This website will give insight into up-and-coming events; they will be linking together with other organizations, going to various schools to talk to kids about violence and how it affects everyone. They'll also be making various appearances to support other organizations. If one needs help and can't do it by oneself, they've come to the right place.Their support is not just for people who are paralyzed; it's for their whole family. They have people inside their families that have to take time and make sacrifices to make things happen too, so they're here for them. If one is just tired of funerals, tired of being in a gang, and wants out, or if one just wants to make a difference and be a part of something positive, this is the place for them.Eric grew up on the south side of Chicago in the part they call the wild, wild hundreds, and he played a major part in making it wild by being a part of a street gang, domestic violence, selling drugs and guns - and for that, he apologizes to the city. Now that he's been resurrected, he plays a major part in putting the city back together. He's met with variSupport the showTo show love to the Dope People Podcast, be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiD7tgj9ezb7Xuk7IOFHRBg.You can also purchase Dope People merch at https://scottsteward.com/merch
