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VG/Voices from the Gaps

VG/Voices from the Gaps is a web-based trans-national academic community including students, teachers, artists, and scholars. VG's intent is to use new digital media to preserve and extend knowledge of art by women of color. VG contains biographical and critical analysis, pedagogical information, and histories of translation. VG is an English course offering, ENGL 3351W Voices from the Gaps: Writing and Art by Women of Color.

VG/Voices from the Gaps was founded in 1996 as a collaborative project of the American Studies Department and English Department at the University of Minnesota. In addition to faculty and students in the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts, the site relies upon students and scholars from around the world as contributors.

VG focuses on the lives and works of minority women artists and writers, visual artists, performance artists, musicians, sonic artists, and filmmakers. Each artist page presents biographical, critical and bibliographical information about the artist, images and quotations pertinent to her life and works, and links to other resources on the web that provide information about her, including translations and archives.

The site is expanding to also include multimedia—photo collages, sonic streams, video and digital files— relevant to each artist. The range of artistic works surveyed is broadening from literature to include new media projects, visual culture, the spoken word and other imaginative forms. VG’s hopes for the future include the staged development of the site into multimedia online exhibits, an online journal, and soliciting new works, including interactive pieces that engage both contemporary issues and aesthetics and reanimate lost works from the past. VG welcomes contributions and collaborations.

English major Josh in Senegal

Service learning classes inspired this English major to teach in Senegal

"With service learning classes, you're not just participating in the campus environment: You're a figure outside in the community. After awhile you realize that you're making an impact...You're connecting with different people: and having all these different relationships really changes your future." 

Lyncy Y.