Christopher Metzger is a socially engaged artist and educator based in Baltimore, MD. He began his teaching career in the Baltimore City Public School System and has extensive experience teaching art within the public, private, and non-profit sectors. As an Associate Professor of Art and Design at Stevenson University, he teaches computer graphics and digital photography, with a strong focus on the practical and theoretical use of technology by artists and designers. Metzger’s teaching philosophy is centered on fostering community and investigating representational justice through the lens of visual literacy. His creative practice often engages communities in collaborative-based projects and his personal work deals with themes related to race, class, and identity, examining these broad ideas through both a historical and contemporary lens.
Metzger’s public art projects have been displayed throughout Baltimore City and in 2015 he collaborated with students at Morgan State University on the Black Lives Matter Inside Out Project. The project garnered international attention following the Baltimore Uprising, was exhibited in 2015 at Art Basel Miami, and documentation of the project was included in the PBS series Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise in 2016. Metzger’s article, Whoever Died from a Rough Ride, was published in the fall 2018 issue of the journal Public Art Dialogue: Public Art as Political Action.
Originating from his work as a socially engaged educator and his research into decolonizing art and design education, he has shared his work and research at a number of professional conferences over the past few years.
2021 - Panel Co-Chair, “It Was All a Dream,” Foundations in Art: Theory and Education Biennial Conference: Infrastructure, Charlotte, NC
2020 - Presentation, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner: Life, Love, and Racism in America,” SECAC, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
2019 - Presentation, “Envisioning Justice: Dismantling Curricular Prejudice,” 2019 Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design Symposium, Include Me: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA
2019 - Presentation, “Personal, Political, Poetic: Migrating Through the In-Between,” Society for Photographic Education MidAtlantic Chapter Conference, Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, Lancaster, PA
2019 - Presentation, “Whoever Died from a Rough Ride,” BUILD.SERVE.UNITE: The Symposium on Socially Engaged Art, Bowie State University, Bowie, MD
2019 - Panel, “HOME in the other,” 2019 American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition, Washington D.C.
2019 - Panel Co-Chair, “Envisioning Justice: Dismantling Curricular Prejudice,” Foundations in Art: Theory and Education Biennial Conference: Foundations in Flux, Columbus, OH
2018 - Panel, Curriculum Approaches, “Envisioning Justice: Dismantling Curricular Prejudice,” Society for Photographic Education MidAtlantic Chapter Conference, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA
2017 - Panel, Public Art in the Era of Black Lives Matter, College Art Association Annual Conference, NY, NY