Art can bring attention to serious issues and create momentum for social change, but it’s also a space to celebrate culture and community. Milwaukee artist Anwar Floyd-Pruitt joins Angela Fitzgerald to explain how he incorporates identity into his work and why Black joy is a revolutionary act.

Anwar Floyd-Pruitt is an artist, curator, and puppeteer from Milwaukee. A graduate of UW-Madison (MFA ’20), Floyd-Pruitt also earned a BFA from UW-Milwaukee (’16) and BA in Psychology from Harvard University (’99). The Chazen Museum of Art, Edgewood College, Mount Mary University and the Museum of Wisconsin Art have hosted solo exhibitions of his collages, paintings, and mixed-media self-portraits. In addition to leading puppet making workshops, Floyd-Pruitt writes and performs a family friendly singalong called Hip Hop Puppet Party. In 2021 he was awarded a grant from the Jane Henson Foundation to engage at-risk youth in puppetry. Floyd-Pruitt is Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend.