2020-2021 Art of Performance

THE ART OF

THE RINGLING PERFORMANCE AT

PRESENTS

2020: (DI)VISIONS OF AMERICA

BY JOHN SIMS ONLINE PREMIERE

JAN 18, 2021 7:30 PM REBROADCAST

JAN 23, 30, & FEB 1, 2021 Filmed at the Historic Asolo Theater at The Ringling SARASOTA, FLORIDA

ABOUT THE WORK This work marks the culmination of artist John Sims’ 20-year long multimedia project entitled Recoloration Proclamation, which features a series of Confederate flag installations, performances and exhibitions that explore the complexity of identity, cultural appropriation and visual terrorism in the context of Confederate iconography and African American culture.

Responding to Covid 19, American policing and the pushback on Confederate iconography and systemic white supremacy, artist and writer John Sims has created a multimedia performance that examines these themes in both the context of Black Lives Matter and global citizenship. The performance reflects the year 2020’s historic collage of collective fear, unrest, and protest: the conditions for both exposing deep divisions and the making of a new vision that values justice, social respect and the power of transformative compassion.

Based on his recent op-eds and the use of an evolving self-portrait, the show will respond to the main events of 2020 with his KoronaKilla video game, Dear Police sound piece, and Gamble Plantation as a Slave Memorial Animation. To engage the community directly, various community leaders and their personal responses are incorporated into the presentation.

In celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, this new work is being offered as a recorded broadcast performance filmed in the Historic Asolo Theater on January 18, with rebroadcast performances available for viewing January 23, 30, and February 1, 2021.

After the performances, the Historic Asolo Theater will be open to visitors for AfroDixia: The Ringling Museum Session, a flag viewing and listening experience available January 18 – February 1, 2021. This audio-visualpoetic pop-up exhibition will present a giant version of the artist’s signature Afro Confederate flag, in conversation with the audio screening of The AfroDixieRemixes. This 13-year music project confronts the song Dixie— the anthem of the Confederacy—by subversively remixing, remapping and cross-appropriating with a collection of 14 tracks of Dixie in the many genres of Black music: Spiritual, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Funk Calypso, Samba, Soul, R&B, House, hip-hop, featuring local musicians from Sarasota, Florida and surrounding areas.

ARTIST BIO JOHN SIMS, a Detroit native, is a conceptual artist, writer and social justice activist, who creates art and curatorial projects spanning the areas of installation, performance, text, music, film and large-scale activism, informed by mathematics, design, the politics of white supremacy, sacred symbols, anniversaries, and poetic/political text. For 20 years, he has been working on the forefront of contemporary mathematical art and leading the national pushback on Confederate iconography. As the former coordinator of mathematics at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, he designed a visual mathematics curriculum for artists and visual thinkers. Curator, performer, writer, and educator, John brings a full suite of disciplinary works and approaches to each subject he embraces.

For more information on the artist: www.johnsimsprojects.com

SPECIAL GUESTS CHANDRA CARTY is an Integrative Nutritionist and owner of Nutrition In The Now in Stockbridge, Georgia. She is one of several holistic healthcare practitioners in the Stockbridge area. She has been researching her family history for the last three years. She is the granddaughter 4th removed of Marriah Burton and the Step granddaughter of Nelson Burton.

NATASHA CLEMENS is the CEO and founder of the Rodney Mitchell Foundation, established in honor of her son who was killed by sheriff deputies resulting from a seat belt violation. She has also been a Registered Nurse for nearly 24 years. Currently, as a social justice leader, she speaks around the country on political issues affecting people of color.

LISA MERRITT, MD is an alumna of Georgetown and Howard universities and completed her physiatry residency at Baylor College of Medicine. A former seven-year President of the Capitol Medical Society and Vice President of the Golden State Medical Society, Merritt was an original member of the California Office on Minority Health statewide multicultural health task force.

She is a Ringling Board member and Chair of the Community Engagement subcommittee of the Strategic Planning committee, and an adjunct professor at the New College of Florida. Through her practice and NFP, the Multicultural Health Institute (MHI), she has mentored and nurtured innumerable students, residents and early clinicians through the healthcare continuum, shining a national spotlight on the need for cultural and linguistic standards and improved strategies to reduce and prevent health disparities.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The Ringling would like to respectfully acknowledge that we occupy the traditional land of Florida’s indigenous populations including the Calusa, the Seminole, the Tocobaga, and the Uzita peoples. We would also like to acknowledge the Angola community, known as the Black Seminoles.

We recognize the privilege we have as a cultural institution located on unceded territory, which came at the expense of peoples who experienced imposed occupation and forced removal. We pay our respects to elders both past and present who have, and continue to, experience the ongoing repercussions of colonialism. We honor the earth for the resources it provides and those who came before, who valued and protected those resources. Truth and acknowledgment are critical to building mutual respect and connection across heritage and culture. We begin this effort with the recognition of what has been suppressed.

This work is an Art of Performance presentation, and is paid for in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax revenues. Additional programming support is provided through the generosity of the Shank Family Foundation and the Huisking Foundation.

The artist’s 2020-2021 artist residency at The Ringling has been dedicated to planning and producing of 2020: (Di)Visions of America, which has also received support from State College of Florida and the Gallery at SCF.

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