On Protest and Mourning
Our fractured nation continues to wrestle with a long condition of injustice: the brutal state and police violence perpetrated against Black lives. The last year, in particular, gathered and united us in unnecessary sorrow but necessary tumult—as a community, a country, and as global citizens, we mobilized an unprecedented response against systemic racism and violence.
CCCADI’s digital exhibition, On Protest and Mourning, brings together photographers and filmmakers who have recorded and borne witness to our uprisings and to our simultaneous insistence that the lives taken prematurely are mourned in public space.
Gutted that we had to proclaim we matter, that we even have to say the words, we nevertheless see in their work our resolve to declare loudly anywhere and everywhere: Black Lives Matter. Too many times, when deep in the throes of rage and grief, those were all the words we could utter. In turn, these image makers, with roots throughout the Caribbean and African Diaspora, offered a visual language to articulate how we grappled with our anger and agony, hand in hand. Many of the moments they capture show the precarious—how we participated in protest and mourning throughout our neighborhoods and cities all the while knowing the possibilities of more terror, more violence, more death loomed all around.
Caribbean Cultural Center New York City, New York Spring, 2021 www.onprotestandmourning.digital
Featured Artists Nadia Alexis, Vanessa Charlot, Dee Dwyer, Jon Henry, Terrence Jennings, Carlos Javier Ortiz
On Protest and Mourning: An Educator’s Guide
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