Echoes: Community Responses to Silent Protest

ECHOES: Community Responses to Silent Protest

Introduction David Matteson Associate Curator of Education Rollins Museum of Art

In Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic, the residents of the fictional town

In addition to the poems, Echoes includes artworks created through

of Vaneska utilize puppetry, an artform that dates to antiquity, to

outreach workshops presented at the Easterseals Day Break Center, a

coordinate their resistance to military occupation. Similarly, the works

local adult day care provider that serves those living with disabilities.

included in the exhibition Silent Protest: Perspectives on War and

Participants in these workshops, many of whom were also veterans,

Disability testify to the power of artistic expression as a means for

learned about the work of Monte Olinger and Yinka Shonibare before

prompting collective action and empathy when faced with adversity.

creating their own inspired projects. I am grateful to Easterseals

Echoes: Community Responses to Silent Protest, is a project also

staff members Dorna Pierre and Jose Santana for their assistance in

inspired by this impetus to recognize art’s resonance and potential for

coordinating these outreach workshops.

cultivating community. Designed as a supplement to Silent Protest— itself a thematic reaction to Kaminsky’s collection of poems—this

As you engage with Silent Protest, you are encouraged to identify

booklet includes community members’ creative responses to specific

the work you find the most inspiring. Perhaps you might even be

artworks featured in the exhibition.

motivated to develop your own meaningful, creative response to this exhibition.

Three ekphrastic poems were commissioned for inclusion in Echoes, and they appear in this booklet alongside images of the artworks that

Silent Protest was organized in collaboration with the University

inspired them. Shawn Welcome, the City of Orlando Poet Laureate,

of Central Florida as part of the 2023-2024 NEA Big Read.

has written a response to Shawn Theodore’s portrait of the National

An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership

Youth Poet Laureate Amanda S. Gorman. Susan Lilley, the Inaugural

with Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding

City of Orlando Poet Laureate, has responded to Helen van Meene’s

of our world, our communities and ourselves through the power of a

photograph of environmental activist Greta Thunberg. While both

shared reading experience.

Welcome and Lilley’s contributions are reactions to the artworks’ subjects, Taylor Ingrassia, a Rollins College student in the class of 2024, has written a poem in tribute to the late activist-photographer Larry Fink, whose work is represented in the exhibition.

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This project is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts #NEABigRead

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Black Rose

by Shawn Welcome City of Orlando, Poet Laureate

When black roses grow in the cracks of sidewalks, one might stop…

And stoop…

And stare at the rare beaut, cause’ the truth is… it doesn’t occur naturally… in nature… notwithstanding poetry… and perhaps cinema, yet somehow… they still exist… supernaturally… against the odds… still speaking to crowds…

A small bunch of interlocked tongues telling tales of resistance… and hope…

Growing in the cracks, that is the crack in your throat…

The auditory disorder you describe as a superpower. Pause.

Have you ever seen a black rose?

Or heard of a black girl’s poem called “The Hill We Climb” Behind a podium of prestige…

Pulling a parcel of performance poetry on a national pedestal.

Opting to operate in the wisdom of owls… and the strength of oxen… overcoming more I’m sure than what you’ve made open to the public.

Everyone within earshot of a black rose… knows the difference between A.I… and an actual endocrine system… releasing emotional electricity.

Trust me! Ali, too, was twenty-two when he took to the throne.

I guess creative types don’t get the same reactions as punches thrown.

The black poet is a black rose. Ode to Amanda.

May your profile continue to grow… in the cracks of sidewalks, that is the crack in your throat… telling tales of resistance… and hope. Who knows?

Shawn Theodore (American, b. 1970) Portrait of Amanda S. Gorman, 2018 Archival pigment print Museum purchase from the Michel Roux Acquisition Fund. 2021.4 © Shawn Theodore. Image courtesy of Kahn Contemporary.

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Maybe one day we’ll all say with confidence… “there is such a thing…

As a black rose.”

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Greta, in Green and Shadow

by Susan Lilley Inaugural City of Orlando Poet Laureate

to locate our attention to the land of house repairs,

haircuts, birthdays, loan payments, football,

while the earth wilts under our carefully counted steps.

Distraction flowers

casually by the roadside— our lives

grow tall and weedy.

We thought we knew how to live, that age brought wisdom.

Hellen van Meene (Dutch, b. 1972) Greta Thunberg, Stockholm, 2019, Chromogenic print, 15 3/8 x 15 3/8 in. The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ’68 and Theodore ’68 Alfond, 2019.2.21 © “Hellen van Meene” Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York.

When your parents named you, how could they have known that in just a few years, people a world away would know your face,

your name. Not through

some tabloid tragedy but by your own dazzling volition.

And your voice compelling our attention.

When the shadowed halls of power lean toward your insistent tempo,

they cannot keep up.

You will not stand for dismissal, but the silence from legions of adults must be ear-splitting. Perhaps it is indefensible

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Greta, young sage and soldier, teach us how to hold

a sparkler of hope in one hand

and a cannonball of truth in the other.

We cannot bear to see your future felled

like another forest under siege.

But while you organize a school strike, we shirk dimly through the week, rushing

through the air we say we love,

the life we say we love.

Feeling cloudy and off balance, I listen for a message from the sky.

I turn up the music in my car,

seeking relief from my own pale fears.

I choose Haydn and Bach

over sounds from our century, choose a time when our guilt is unknowable,

when none of us living

on earth today existed. Just

for an hour.

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Our Thousands

by Taylor Ingrassia ’24 In memory of Larry Fink We’ll tear their flag from the pike and tear it to shreds with our teeth In its place we’ll raise a flag that holds space For people like you and me— For our histories: In it, the history of the moment In it, the history of the ground under our feet In it, the weight of all that carries Us, and all we carry What can be held in the ball of your fist What can be shouted on high What can be called into being By what flags flying in what current sky And what we leave behind And what one body we become when We amass under one rallying cry And what that means for the human body For every body

Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Washington Moratorium, Washington DC, November, 1969, 1969/2019 Archival pigment print 22 x 17 in.

Gift of Russ Rabito, 2020.49 © Larry Fink

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And the soil we find under every ground Under our feet— That history.

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Dialogues: Artistic Responses by Members of the Easterseals Community The Easterseals Day Break Center is an adult day care provider in Winter Park that serves those with disabilities. Through a series of outreach workshops to the Center, participants learned about works included in Silent Protest and created their own art projects in response. The abstraction of Monte Olinger’s St. Johns Sunset inspired participants’ watercolor paintings, while Yinka Shonibare’s Untitled inspired the exploration of pattern through collage.

Monte Olinger (American, b. 1958) St. Johns Sunset, 2012 Acrylic wash and mixed media on canvas 48 x 36 in.

The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins Museum of Art. Gift of Barbara ‘68 and Theodore ‘68 Alfond.

2013.34.5 Image courtesy of the artist.

Cover artwork created by workshop participant Albe.

Yinka Shonibare, CBE (British-Nigerian, b. 1962) Untitled, 2002 Cast resin, plastic, wood, paper, and fabric 12 ¾ x 8 x 10 ½ in.

Gift of Suzanne Delehanty in honor of Teagan Walsh, Rollins Class of 2020, 2020.42 © 2022 Yinka Shonibare / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

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Pedro Dark Night

Chief Untitled

Magdalena A Day at the Beach

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Kathy Stained Glass

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Joe Fireplace

Francine Island

Natalie Untitled

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This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. #NEABigRead