2020

FREEDAMN!




The Summer of 2020 was hot and filled with the pain of unnecessary Black death at the hands of the police. News of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd ignited tprotests around the world while the loss of Walter Wallace and Dominique Rem’mie Fells compounded the suffering in Philly. 

The energy felt similiar to the Fall of 1963, when people mourning the lives of Medgar Evers, Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Rosamond Robertson, amongst others, took their power and rage to the street. Nina Simone’s reaction electrified the country with “Mississippi Goddamn.”

FREEDAMN!!! was inspired by her song.

A site specific, response by artists of color to a community of color in  a moment, a year, a history, of systematic oppression, inequities, discrimination and  bias. It was an invitation to artists to bring time-based media  to  community experiencing similar conditions, traumas, survival tactics and triggers.  

The show explored notions of love, power, nation, geography, sisterhood, spirituality,  community and self, while investigating the significance of Black & Brown culture, and engaging the expansiveness of the Black & Brown diaspora.  

We continue to share For Freedoms belief citizenship is defined by participation, not  ideology and the power of art can be used to drive civic engagement, ignite public discourse and inspire people to participate in democracy.