MONMOUTH, ILLINOIS (March 21, 2025) — San Francisco-based artist, activist, and scholar Trina Robinson will help Monmouth College honor one of its legendary professors on March 27.
At 7PM in the Dahl Chapel and Auditorium, Robinson will present the college's annual Thompson Lecture, which is held in memory of Sam Thompson, who taught philosophy at Monmouth for 46 years. Titled "Liberation through Redaction: Reclaiming Narratives through the Visual Arts," her talk is free and open to the public.
"Trina Robinson is an incredibly accomplished artist, storyteller, activist, and educator," said Monmouth Philosophy and Religious Studies Professor Joshua Gentzke. "I am beyond excited to have her here at Monmouth — this will no doubt be a fantastic evening."
"My artwork explores the relationship between memory and migration, using an interdisciplinary approach that includes film, photography, printmaking, installation, and archival materials," wrote Robinson in her artist statement. "Whether the move was forced or initiated by a search for new opportunities, we all have a migration story in our bloodlines. . . Each journey is varied, but we are connected by the questions we ask ourselves in that search. Movement is a familiar thread that connects us all."
Robinson's work has been featured in both group and solo shows at numerous cultural institutions across the country including Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, the Museum of African Diaspora (a Smithsonian affiliate), ICA San Jose, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Arlington, Virginia.
She will also be part of the forthcoming Black Gold exhibition at For-Site, Fort Point (Presidio) and an exhibition titled "Paper is People: Decolonizing Global Paper Cultures" at the Robert C Williams Museum of Papermaking at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Among other distinctions, Robinson has also been a SFMOMA SECA Award finalist and on the shortlist for the CPW Vision Award for Emerging Photographer. She's held residencies at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California; Lost and Found Lab at Yale University's Beinecke Library; and the Black Space Residency at Minnesota Street Project Studios in San Francisco.
Robinson has traveled the country while telling the story of exploring her ancestry with The Moth Mainstage at Lincoln Center in New York, and on stages in San Francisco, Portland, Omaha, and Westport, Connecticut. Her story aired on NPR's The Moth Radio Hour in 2019.
She previously worked in print and digital media in production at companies such as The New York Times Style Magazine, Vanity Fair, and Slack before receiving her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2022.
The Thompson Lecture will be livestreamed on the college's YouTube channel.
"The Thompson Lecturers bring the world to Monmouth," said Philosophy Professor Anne Mamary. "They help our students think about things that maybe they weren't even aware existed."
After graduating from Monmouth a century ago with a degree in English, Sam Thompson earned a Master's degree and doctorate in Philosophy from Princeton University. He then returned to his alma mater to teach. Most notable among his publications were two popular textbooks: A Modern Philosophy of Religion and The Nature of Philosophy. Thompson died in 1983.
The Thompson Lecture Series was made possible by his daughters, Jean Thompson Follett ('51) and Roberta Thompson Fassett ('56), and by the college's Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.
