Wake the Arts Ambassadors Portal
What is Wake the Arts?
- Wake the Arts Academic Departments:
- Wake the Arts Center
- Galleries and Collections
- Secrest Artists Series
Wake the Arts at Wake Forest University is a hub that delivers on the promise of Pro Humanitate by creating community and providing funding support for all faculty, staff and students through experiential learning opportunities and creative research. Building upon the already high quality of artistic work at Wake Forest, Wake the Arts ignites the disciplinary and interdisciplinary power of the arts to invigorate the intellectual, artistic, and cultural life of the university.
5 events: Fall 2026
- Wellbeing Concert Series
- Hank Willis Thomas: High Visibility (Hanes Art Gallery) + Flash Point: The Civil Rights Photography of Danny Lyon (Reynolda House)
- Secrest Artists Series
- The Firebugs
- OUT at the Movies Opening Night screening
- The Music of Jake Heggie + Viva Verdi screening
E-Letter Archive
Additional Resources
- WTA Stories
An in-depth collection of Arts stories, events and news - Wake the Arts slide deck
Comprehensive deck covering all things Wake the Arts - 2024-25 WTA Annual Report
- Wake the Arts alumni page
- 60th anniversary of Reece Collection (Student Art-Buying Trip)
Funded Projects AY26-27:
| Name of Project | Event Date | Description | Arts Discipline(s) | Project Page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Learning from the Navajo Nation | 11/9/2026 | Andrew Henry, a Navajo silversmith and storyteller and Bessie Henry, a Navajo weaver, jewelry maker, and native cook/chef, will come to campus to interact with students and the community on various levels including class presentations, cooking, weaving and jewelry making demonstrations, storytelling and exposure to Navajo tradition such as learning Navajo games and being exposed to the Navajo language. We will center experiences around Indigenous Peoples day (October 12th), and National Native American Heritage Month (the residency is tentatively planned for November 9-15th) and will offer opportunities to the community as well. | Art | |
| Research seminar for Home Subjects | Spring 2027 | As a way of concluding our digital humanities research project “Home Subjects,” we are planning an edited collection of essays titled Home Subjects: The Domestic Display of Art in Britain from Hogarth to Bloomsbury for Routledge. This volume traces the evolution of the domestic interior as a space of meaning in British art and visual culture. It proposes a major reorientation of the history of British art and modernity by examining how representations of domestic space evolved alongside—and helped to define—changing conceptions of the home, family, and private life. We argue that the rise of the public sphere, with its museums, academies, and temporary exhibitions, developed in constant, generative tension with an enduring ideology that positioned the domestic interior as the ideal locus for art, morality, and British identity. This counter-narrative of private display profoundly shaped not only artistic production and collecting habits, but also the formal properties of pictorial space itself across the long eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. | Art | |
| SECAC Conference Sponsorship | October 2026 | Art | ||
| Black Power Screening Series | 9/14/26 | Film screening at WSSU | Film | link |
| Legacy: Apartheid's Shadow | 9/23/2026 | Join us on September 23rd for a screening of "Legacy: Apartheid's Shadow," a compelling documentary by LA-based actor and director Tara Moore. The film explores the lingering impact and aftermath of apartheid in South Africa. Hosted in collaboration with African American and African Studies, the School of Divinity, and campus partners across history, film, and social sciences, this event invites the community into an open dialogue on racial inequality, colonialism, and social justice. | Film | link |
| Classical Indian Music Workshop and Performance | 9/17-19 | Experience the emotional depth and beauty of Indian classical music through a two-part event led by acclaimed slide guitar master Rhitom Sarkar, joined by Pratap Mishra on tabla and Srijoy Mitra on keyboard. Interactive workshop and live concert performance. | Music, Dance | link |
| Setan Jawa and Peni Candra Rini class visits | 10/14/2026 | World-renowned Indonesian composer and vocalist Peni Candra Rini, along with musician/scholar Andrew McGraw, will lead a day-long cultural residency. The feature event is a live performance of her custom musical score set to Setan Jawa (2016), a celebrated silent black-and-white film by Indonesian director Garin Nugroho. In addition to the public performance at Brendle Recital Hall, the residency includes a student vocal workshop and classroom visits exploring Southeast Asian performing arts. | Music, Dance | |
| Walt Whitman's American Dream | 9/10/2026 | On September 10th at 4:30 PM, step into ZSR Library’s Special Collections for a staged reading of Walt Whitman's American Dream, a new play by Sarah Vander Schaff. Featuring a cast of university theatre faculty, this intimate performance highlights the library's rare original first editions of Whitman's Leaves of Grass while offering audiences a unique look into the development of a new dramatic work. | Theatre | link |
| OUT At The Movies Preview Night Screening | 9/24/2026 | Join us on Thursday, September 24th at 7:00 PM in the Kulynych Auditorium for the OUT At The Movies International Film Festival Preview Night, co-hosted by the Documentary Film Program (DFP). The event centers on the theme of LGBTQ+ spaces and community, anchored by the premiere of "Taking Up Space"—a new short documentary created by DFP students in collaboration with festival directors. Featuring interviews with local figures, the film examines the historical and contemporary importance of queer community spaces. | Film | link |
Contact
Beth McAlhany
Senior Director of Development
Sean Howard
Senior Director of Development