I just got home from the opening and workshop for Graphic Protest. I’m pretty excited about the opportunity to show work at Central Michigan University (CMU). I was born in the town where CMU is and spent the first few years of my life there. So getting back for an installation called ‘Reoccupation’ (about the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969-1971) was pretty amazing. I also installed 150 pennants (out of 300 I made) in Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin).
The show was also amazing, because it allows me to engage in dialogue with rural folks. Since I am one of the remaining rural contingents in Justseeds (I think Roger migrates between the rural and urban), it is all that more amazing when I can work with rural youth who would otherwise have no regular access to this type of art or political thought. While I frequently wonder about my place in a rural and semi-urban environment, projects like this reinvigorate me.
A big thanks to curator Anne Gouchenour for the invite and to Alynn Guerra for her amazing work on seed sovereignty (I’ll post images of her work in the new few days). In the meantime, here are some photos of the final install and the youth workshop. Now it is time for me to shift gears and start building lowrider bikes with urban Native kids. More on that shortly…
That looked like a blast Dylan! I can almost feel the excitement of the kids in the photos. I taught screenprinting to some high school kids, in queens, a couple months back and enjoyed their enthusiasm so much. I was real nervous about working with them and found their interest and willing to engage to be very disarming. Fun times.
The install looks great, pennants provide a wonderful visual repetition. What are the figures made of? And what kind of response did attendees have?
How long is this up for? I have a friend in Michigan who may be interested in seeing it.
this looks so rad, dylan! ditto on awesome to see the kids engaged. did you use some of the pennants that they printed in the installation? i would love to hear more about the projects you did with them.
The show is up until February 12. See http://www.uag.cmich.edu for more information about the times, dates, and location.
Unfortunately, the workshop was after the opening, so the pennants the youth made aren’t in the show. They all just kept them. As far as I can tell, folks were digging the show and the workshop.
The figures are all ink drawings on cardboard. I use both dumpstered cardboard and will occasionally buy 4′ x 8′ and 5′ x 8′ sheets of it. The figures stand with a hinged 2″ x 4″ cut in half.