Dreams of Freedom – Michael Richards: Are You Down? book celebration
Step into an afternoon of art, memory, and making at Franconia Sculpture Park for Dreams of Freedom—Michael Richards: Are You Down? This event will feature authors and curators Melissa Levin and Alex Fialho in dialogue with Lissa Jones-Lofgren, host of Black Market Reads podcast, and MN-based independent curator Esther Callahan.
Schedule: Saturday, April 18, 2026
1:00 p.m. Welcome
1:15 p.m. Live podcast recording of Black Market Reads
2:00 p.m. Audience Q&A
2:30 p.m. Informal reception, tour of Are You Down?
2:30–5:00 p.m. Handbuilding with Mudluk Pottery Studio
Michael Richards’s Are You Down?—Franconia Sculpture Park’s only permanent sculpture—is a bronze recast of a large-scale sculpture engaging the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen that was originally created during Richards’s fellowship at the park in 2000.
Following the conversation, audiences are invited to deepen their engagement through a Q&A and an informal reception with a tour of Are You Down? before transitioning into a hands-on community art experience led by Mudluk Pottery Studio.