Arts Mid-Hudson presents Leading with Artivism: an interview with Jaime Ransome & Ransome, led by Poet Gold. This live stream and in-person event will take place on Wednesday, June 25, 2025 at 7:00 pm at our AMH Poughkeepsie Gallery and will also be live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required to receive the streaming link. All who register are invited to submit questions that will be asked during the Q&A session of the event.

Register here: https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=E231621&id=516

Leading with Artivism is a live quarterly interview series, created and curated by Poet Gold in collaboration with Arts Mid-Hudson, featuring a diverse mix of Artivists (Artist Activists) who have taken up the charge through their art to highlight social issues. Each episode gives viewers an inside look at the hearts and minds of these courageous creatives.

Earlier this year, Poet Gold interviewed Marielena Ferrer, the Executive Director of Unison Arts & Learning Center in New Paltz and the leader of Humanamente, a diversity and inclusion consulting organization. ⁠In 2024, Poet Gold conducted a series of interviews, engaging with Sammie B via live stream and hosting both Jean-Marc Sovak and Carmen Lizardo in a hybrid format—live-streamed and in-person—at Arts Mid-Hudson’s Gallery, located at 696 Dutchess Turnpike in Poughkeepsie. The previous year, in March 2023, local youth and artist Harrison Brisbon-McKinnon interviewed Poet Gold in person at the gallery. Throughout 2023, Poet Gold also interviewed Artivists Pamela Sneed, Onaje Benjamin, Stephanie JT Russell, and Joel Bergner. Continuing this rich dialogue, the 2022 series featured in-depth conversations with Artivists Amy Trompetter, Barbara Masterson, Bibiana Huang Matheis, Daniel Villegas, Vince Ballentine, Jayda Woodall, Miguel “Lito Koqui” Sanchez, Kicks Kapri, Rosmerayah, and Harrison Brisbon-McKinnon.

To watch all previous virtual episodes of Leading with Artivism: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtsMidHudson

Jaime Ransome (she/her) is a Hudson Valley-based curator, writer, and educator specializing in immersive, community-driven exhibitions that bridge cinematic storytelling with curatorial activism – creating exhibitions that are intellectually sharp and emotionally resonant. Inspired by literature, music, and art history, Ransome pairs celebrated creative minds with established and imaginative institutions. Working independently under J.Ransome Curation, she collaborates with local art spaces to create ephemeral exhibitions and indelible programmatic experiences.

Ransome was born in the small town of Rich Square, NC, moved to New Jersey as a teenager, and now resides in the Hudson Valley region of New York. He received an MFA from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA and a BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. Through collage, painting, sculpture, installation, and video, ransome’s work comments on his family’s life in America from 1899, the year his grandmother was born, to our current times. At the core of his practice is a reflection on the Great Migration, the period in American history when six million Black people left the south and migrated north and west in search of a better life. While his pictorial narratives are personal, the images in his work are universal and interplay with larger social, racial, ancestral, economic, and political histories that inform our nation to this day.

Ransome’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Opalka Gallery, Albany, NY; the Contemporary art Museum (CAM), Raleigh, NC; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC; and Geary, Millerton, NY. Group shows include the 2023 Center for Maine Contemporary Art Biennial, Rockland, ME; An Unpredictable Time & Place, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; 47th Presentation of Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro, NC; as well as exhibitions at the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ; Band of Vices, Los Angeles, CA, The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), Winston-Salem, NC; The Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY; and the Katonah Museum, Katonah, NY.

Ransome was a 2022 Pollock-Krasner foundation grantee and was awarded the 2022 Hudson Valley Artist Purchase Award from The Dorsky Museum. He was recently awarded a Silver Medal in the Innovation category from Contemporary Collage Magazine. He participated in residencies at the Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC; Studios of Key West; Key West, FL; and Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY in January 2025.

Poet Gold is a rare talent who grabs you by the heart and says “Recognize” – Poet, author, performer, songwriter, community “Artivist” and speaker, Bettina “Poet Gold” Wilkerson is pushing the boundaries of poetry and the spoken word. Living with a chronic illness since childhood, Poet Gold, or as she is affectionately known as “Gold”, brings a soul-searching insight about the human existence, love, dreams, challenges, and triumph.