{"id":11034,"date":"2021-11-11T17:36:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T17:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uaaglobal.com\/using-arts-and-culture-as-a-frame-to-approach-social-issues-the-greenwood-art-project-in-tulsa\/"},"modified":"2021-11-11T17:36:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T17:36:03","slug":"using-arts-and-culture-as-a-frame-to-approach-social-issues-the-greenwood-art-project-in-tulsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uaaglobal.com\/using-arts-and-culture-as-a-frame-to-approach-social-issues-the-greenwood-art-project-in-tulsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Arts and Culture as a Frame to Approach Social Issues: The Greenwood Art Project in Tulsa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Submitted by Tram Nguyen<\/a> on November 11, 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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An elevator. Train tracks. These two settings were sites of profound trauma and historical significance in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The elevator where a young black man bumped into a white woman one hundred years ago in Greenwood, setting off events that became the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The train tracks dividing the Black part of town from the white, that were also the path Greenwood\u2019s survivors followed on foot to escape the killing of hundreds of residents and the burning and destruction of their district known as Black Wall Street.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the elevator and the train tracks also became art. They were both art installation and storytelling projects that emerged from the Greenwood Art Project<\/a>. The initiative, funded through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, was a partnership of Bloomberg with the City of Tulsa and the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission to add a cultural component to the centennial commemoration.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Over a period of three years, lead artist Rick Lowe facilitated a process of deep engagement with the Greenwood community and 32 local artists to tell their stories and activate the process of healing. The Greenwood Art Project launched as a biennial from May 26 to October 25, 2021 with local installations including murals, sculptures, performances, historical tours and interactive technology.<\/p>\n

This was the first time the City of Tulsa was officially involved and the first time the city\u2019s residents as a whole engaged in a broader, open discussion of the massacre. What the project partners found was that \u201cthe city was not ready for a memorial, but needed a conversation,\u201d said Stephanie Dockery of Bloomberg Philanthropies Arts Team.<\/p>\n

Artists initiated that public conversation by telling the story of Black Wall Street and their community\u2019s past, present and future.<\/p>\n

L. Joi McCondichie, whose grandmother escaped the massacre as a nine-year-old child, produced A Century Walk, inviting persons of every background to walk with her on the train tracks that Greenwood residents used to flee the massacre in the middle of the night. This community walk retraced the steps and paid homage to the experiences and lives of Black people who fled on foot more than 40 miles north from Tulsa to Pawhuska, the smoke from their burned homes and businesses billowing behind them.<\/p>\n

Rick Lowe approached the Greenwood Art Project not by coming up with a preconceived idea, but by hosting dinners and discussions with the community. \u201cHe started the project by not having a project,\u201d said Anita Contini, program lead for Bloomberg Philanthropies Arts. \u201cHe understood it wasn\u2019t just about his work but about local artists and bringing together the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowe along with artist William Cordova curated a permanent installation along I-22, the interstate highway built during urban renewal that cut through the district and precipitated the second destruction of Greenwood. The installation transforms this destructive creation instead into the \u201cPathway to Hope,\u201d a pedestrian walkway that symbolically reconnects the district.<\/p>\n

Documentaries about the artists<\/a> and projects are collected on The Greenwood Art Project website. One in particular, a Visual Poem for TheRese Aduni<\/em>, a local filmmaker, playwright, and dancer, stays with me. In it, the Tulsa native shares a personal story of turning depression and loss into resurrection and hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might want to kill us,\u201d she says. \u201cThey might want us to die. But we can be resurrected, we can be revived. We can revive ourselves as a community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-call-for-artists"],"yoast_head":"\nUsing Arts and Culture as a Frame to Approach Social Issues: The Greenwood Art Project in Tulsa - United Arts Agency | UAA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uaaglobal.com\/using-arts-and-culture-as-a-frame-to-approach-social-issues-the-greenwood-art-project-in-tulsa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Using Arts and Culture as a Frame to Approach Social Issues: The Greenwood Art Project in Tulsa - United Arts Agency | UAA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Submitted by Tram Nguyen on November 11, 2021 An elevator. 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