Dr. Sarah Sylvester Williams, faculty teaching fellow in art history at Millsaps College, discusses the work within Piercing the Inner Wall: The Art of Dusti Bongé for this online program.

Dr. Sarah Sylvester Williams (BA, University of Missouri—Kansas City; MA, University of Missouri—Kansas City; PhD, University of Missouri—Columbia) is the faculty teaching fellow of art history. She teaches general courses on the Early Modern and Modern periods as well as courses on Modern and Contemporary Architecture. Dr. Williams’ teaching interests also include Women Artists; Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Art; and Northern Baroque Art. It is important to her that students make connections to artworks of the past mediated by their own personal experiences. Her classes focus on engagement with the work of art and open discussions where all opinions are examined and valued. She says, “context is important to understanding a work of art, but the viewer’s own thoughts and opinions cannot be ignored. Artworks evolve and take on different meanings for different viewers. It’s this variation in ways of seeing that makes art interesting. I hope to learn just as much about how an artwork is viewed by my students as they do from me.”

This event will be featured as a video published to the Museum’s Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube pages, as well as on the Mississippi Museum of Art App.