December 18 International Migrants Day
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“You’re not one of us. You’re one of them!”
In 2006 I reinvigorated the ancient genre of art known as Station of the Cross. I did this by exhibiting a series of artwork titled Stations of the Cross - It Was Just An Old Fashioned Lynching at an episcopal church in the Chicago area.
The medium employed was collage, and consisted of fourteen collages on wood panels, each 12” x 16” and one assemblage 24” x 48”. The purpose was to raise awareness of hatred and racism, generate conversations about the topic, stage talks with the community, and do a performance in the form of a Good Friday sermon at the Rockefeller Chapel in Hyde Park, Chicago.
With no intention to sell the work, I also made signed, color, limited edition catalogues of the exhibit that were given to anyone who donated any amount of money to the church’s mission to feed the poor in their community.
My action will be to launch a page on my website (www.gallery119.com/oneofthem) for my new series titled Stations of the Cross - One of Them which was inspired by the Robert Hayden poem Night, Death in Mississippi. In the short poem an old white racist, with a long history of lynching African Americans, bemoans the fact that he cannot be out with his son “un-bucking” the men being killed that night after hearing a cry and screech of “One of them, I bet.”
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