Time-Based Media Assistant Professor Jamal Currie has been selected as a recipient of a Black Excellence Award in the field of Education.
The awards, established in 1985 by the weekly newspaper The Milwaukee Times, "honor outstanding local individuals who have personally and professionally influenced their communities without fanfare or due credit." He will receive his award on February 15.
Currie’s role as an educator has been entwined with a deep and selfless commitment to community service. He has been, and remains, a pioneer and service advocate for Milwaukee’s media-producing community while also developing and leading MIAD’s contemporary media arts curriculum and facility since fall 2005.
On arriving in Milwaukee in 2000, Currie worked as Educational Outreach Coordinator at MATA community media, one of the nation’s largest public access television centers, providing a media literacy-centered production curriculum and access to studio and video production tools to over 70 school and youth organizations. This project resulted in the cablecast of more than 100 local, youth-produced television programs.
Two years later, he joined the artistic team of Express Yourself Milwaukee, Inc., a non-profit organization that provides an arts curriculum to schools and youth organizations serving under-privileged and adjudicated youth in the City of Milwaukee.
He continues to work with EYM to provide time-based media documentation of the organization’s educational process for promotion and has implemented video and animation projects at the Milwaukee Youth Detention Center, the 8th Street School and the St. Amelian Residential Treatment Center.
Said Dean of Fine Arts Al Balinsky, "Jamal’s leadership throughout the college and community is widespread. He incorporates community service and service learning into his teaching, as seen through his continuing work with Express Yourself Milwaukee and other endeavors."
Last fall, Currie curated a major Time-Based Media (animation, video and interactive) exhibition of works by 30 MIAD and Milwaukee area artists, including from Express Yourself Milwaukee. By redefining the genre of time-based media, “Calling Forth Certain Experiences…” evidenced Currie’s knowledge of this multifaceted discipline and his leadership within Milwaukee’s media-producing community.
Currie is also a founding member of the performance collective Experimental Sound and Video Collective (ESVC), which was also part of the exhibit.
He received his MFA and BFA from the University of South Florida-Tampa.
