Friday, October  4, 2024 | Winona High School

The Minnesota Marine Art Museum is partnering with the Winona Area Public Schools to bring  Nikkolas Smith—an Artivist, picture book creator, and Hollywood film illustrator - to the Winona High School on Friday, October 4. Nikkolas will present to the entire Winona Senior high school student body about The Power of Art to Change the World. Through his powerful Artivism and his experience as a Black Artist, Nikkolas Smith takes the audience into a visual journey to talk about how Art can spark important conversations around our society's greatest broken bones and inspire us to make positive changes.  Then, Nikkolas will offer professional development training for middle and high school art teachers and media arts teachers.

These events are closed to the public.

---

About Nikkolas Smith

After designing theme parks at Walt Disney Imagineering for 11 years, Nikkolas Smith (b. 1985) is now an artivist, concept artist, children’s book author, film Illustrator, and movie poster designer. In addition to illustrating numerous works by other authors, he is the author/illustrator of the picture books The Golden Girls of Rio (Sky Pony, 2016), which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award); My Hair is Poofy & That’s Okay (VJS Productions, 2017), and World Cup Women (Sky Pony, 2019). Smith describes himself as an artivist, marrying art with social activism. As an illustrator of color, he creates art that can spark important conversations around social justice in today’s world and inspire meaningful change. His 2023 picture book The Artivist (Kokila) shows how children can combine art and activism in their daily lives.