Remembrance as Resistance: Preserving Black Narratives
DETAILS
June 19, 2020 online
EVENTS
Global Women's Cypher with Toni Blackman
Virtual Ring Shout
Virtual Exhibition
Charmaine Minniefield
Due to COVID-19, the physical installation at Oakland Cemetery has been postponed until Juneteenth 2021, and we will celebrate this year through virtual content.
Remembrance as Resistance: Preserving Black Narratives honors recently discovered unmarked graves in the African American Burial Grounds of Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery. The project coincides with the Historic Oakland Foundation completing restoration of the African American Burial Grounds and the cemetery’s 2020 Juneteenth celebration. While the physical installation has been postponed to 2021, Flux Projects is proud to present a series of virtual programs and events for Juneteenth 2020.
Remembrance as Resistance: Preserving Black Narratives celebrates the Ring Shout, a traditional African-American worship and gathering practice whose origins in West African ritual and ceremony predate slavery From its roots in West Africa, the Ring Shout was reborn during enslavement in the West in resistance to laws which prohibited those enslaved from gathering, except for worship, and forbid any form of cultural expression not in service to the enslavers, including drumming. These laws were imposed in an effort to systematically dismantle communication, and ultimately community. In response, those enslaved created Praise Houses—small usually wooden structures used for worship throughout the Southeast. As an act of resistance, congregants would gather in circle to stomp or shout (full body rhythmic movement) upon the wooden floors, ultimately creating a communal drum—secretly preserving their cultural rituals and collective prayers and traditions. These small hidden worship spaces were the first Black churches in the Western world.
Through this project Minniefield explores evidence of the Ring Shout’s survival in contemporary dance, music, and spoken word as testament to the resilience of a people.
Juneteenth 2020 programs are listed below and will launch on Friday, June 19. Flux Projects’s programs are offered in conjunction with Historic Oakland’s Juneteenth celebrations, which can be found here>
Juneteenth 2020 Virtual Program
Released 12am EST Juneteenth 2020
LIVE at 2pm EST: Women’s Cypher with Toni Blackman. Details below.
About the Artist
Charmaine Minniefield seeks to preserve Black narratives by creating public art in communities affected by gentrification and erasure. She has completed numerous community murals, and she was recently commissioned by the City of Atlanta to create murals honoring the unsung heroines of the Civil Rights Movement. Recent work also includes projection mapping and site-specific installations. With a degree in Fine Art from Agnes Scott College, Minniefield has served the Atlanta area as an arts administrator for nearly 20 years, holding positions with the National Black Arts Festival, the High Museum of Art, and the Fulton County Department of Art and Culture, and producing projects around art and activism with such organizations as Alternate ROOTS, Points of Light, and Flux Projects. She recently served as faculty for the Department of Art and Visual Cultural at Spelman College and currently serves as faculty for Freedom University, an underground university for undocumented students.
See Also
ArtsATL interview with Charmaine Minniefield
WABE's Lois Reitzes speaks with Minniefield in a City Lights's episode on Juneteenth
PROJECT DONORS
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur / Corinne & Jeff Adams / Agnes Francis Adolphine / Chris Appleton / Candace Banks / Allie Bashuk / Stephen Michael Brown / Erin Clark / Anne Archer Dennington / Nicky Cohen & Simon Dibley / Emily Cook / Kwakiutl L. Dreher / Amy Durrell / Audrey Gámez / glo ATL / Helena Harrison / Jessica Helfrecht / Jessyca Holland / Renata Irving / Jane Jackson / Leslie & Rob Joseph / Rebekka Kuntschik & Yong Pak / Mary Swan Lamar / Mike Landman / Joseph Lefter / Ellen Mathys / Birgit & David McQueen / Amy Miller / Marni & Julian Mohr, Jr. / Opal Moore / Jennifer Morrison / Kelly Nelson / Kathryn Newman / Ryan Oliver / Bonnie O’Neill / Sharon Parham / Alicia Perry / Margaret Reiser / Ann Rowles / Glen Sarvady / David Schuster / Doug Shipman / Pam Sugarman & Tom Rosenberg / April VanMansfeld / Kim Wachtel / Lauren Welsh / Alyson West / Keith Yates
PROJECT SPONSORS
