Project: Collaboratively developed and created a public work of Pauli Murray with participants from Durham and Duke University. Through three workshops that included participatory exercises, multi media creations, contemplative practice, and dialogue, the residency exemplified the liberating consequences of community building. Theme: Acknowledging the past and creating things for the future hinges on the liberating consequences of community building and an attention to the process of living in the present moment. Concept: The two-week fall 2007 residency by artist Brett Cook included residents of Durham in the creation of monumental pieces of art, and dialogue. The first week of the residency was focused on a series of multi disciplinary exercises that reference Pauli Murray. Murray was a woman who grew up in Southwest Central Durham and went on to become a lawyer, civil rights activist, feminist, priest, and poet. She was chosen as a focus for the work because her passion for justice, her history, and her philosophy provide fertile ground for cultivating university/community relationships. During the residency we built on conversations with the Art, Art History and Visual Studies Department (with collaborator Pedro Lasch), the African and African American Studies Department (with collaborator Mark Anthony Neal), Duke Performances (with collaborator Aaron Greenwald) and Duke undergraduates (with collaborator Megan Moskop) as well as the Lyon Park Community Center senior citizens group (with collaborator Thomas Womble), Partners for Youth (with collaborator Lee Bordley), and the Quality of Life Project in Southwest Central Durham (with collaborator Dorcas Bradley) to identify students, faculty, staff, and community members that participated in the residency project and, ultimately, will play important roles in the larger Face Up Project that will take place during the spring 2008 semester. This residency enriched the arts at Duke by creating provocative dialogue through art and art making among students, faculty, staff, and the broader Durham community. It modeled some inherently revolutionary ideas about what the practice of art can be, its societal benefits, and how it can be a force for intellectual discovery and social change. Participants in this residency experienced art, practiced collaboration, considered notions of history and culture, and reflected upon their own identity within our diverse and overlapping communities. Connecting Duke to the larger Durham community, this project put knowledge in the service of society. Social collaboration transcends individual privileges where separate expectations are replaced with equality, and collective self-interest. By creating experiences of dynamic demographics, with exercises that everyone can create in, there is a collective unification, a support of new community that is inclusive in its being. At the center of these exercises for positive shared experience was an artistic representation of partnership and collaboration. Method: Through reference to and learning about the life, art and passions of Pauli Murray, the residency workshops focused on learning together and highlighting connections as individuals and community members . Building on visual art practice, historical information, and contemplative education strategies, the participants of the project collaboratively created elements for the public installation. Cook’s studio was open to visitors throughout this process, inviting contributions by students, community artists, other groups and individuals interested in the project. During the final week of the residency Cook painted the collaborative work and installed them at a celebration at the Lyon Park Community Center honoring Pauli Murray. The fall residency provided an opportunity to create the first of a series of public works commissioned as part of the Face Up Project: Telling Stories of Community Life Project. The two-week fall residency energized students, faculty, and community residents to forge alliances so ongoing work in the spring can proceed with a core group of campus and community organizers already in place. The fall residency also enriched an ongoing dialogue about the power of the intersection of art, the documentary process, and community building. The three workshop/art making periods of the individual residency served as individual multi disciplinary learning/teaching exercises Autumn 2007 Residency Healing the Past and Creating the Future in the Present Moment November 5 - 18, 2007 Duke University Center for Documentary Studies, Durham North Carolina
Project Pages: Complete Narrative Healing and Creating in the Present Moment Fall 2007 Residency Spring 2008 Project Description Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life Spring Residency 2008 Course Information Reconciling Different Worlds: Art, Social Change & Documentary DOCST 190S.01 Background Links Durham Quality of Life Partnership Center for Documentary Studies Lehman Brady Fellowship info Pauli Murray Biographical info Christopher Rumbley Closing ReflectionSlideshow%20-%20Face%20Up%20Fall%202007%20Complete%20Narrative.htmlSlideshow%20-%20Face%20Up%20Fall%202007%20Complete%20Narrative.htmlSlideshow%20-%20Face%20Up%20Fall%202007%20Complete%20Narrative.htmlhttp://cds.aas.duke.edu/faceup/http://cds.aas.duke.edu/faceuphttp://cds.aas.duke.edu/faceuphttp://www.durhamqualityoflife.org/http://cds.aas.duke.edu/index.htmlhttp://cds.aas.duke.edu/courses/brady.htmlhttp://www.ncwriters.org/services/lhof/inductees/pmurray.htmhttp://faceupproject.wordpress.com/shapeimage_4_link_1shapeimage_4_link_2shapeimage_4_link_4shapeimage_4_link_5shapeimage_4_link_6shapeimage_4_link_7shapeimage_4_link_8shapeimage_4_link_9shapeimage_4_link_10