Halloween marked yet another successful installation. With this piece, SOUL protested the excess of deadly forced used against unarmed black men in American. Names and bios of victims were attached to 6 cardboard cut outs placed on the button, while chalk body out lines were scattered throughout the campus. According to Professor Marc Lamont Hill, “an unarmed African-American man was killed by law-enforcement, security guards, and ‘vigilantes’ every 2.5 days in 2012.”
Sadly, the status of African American’s in this country has changed little of the years. The vast major of the Black population are disenfranchised and underrepresented. There are more Black men in prisons today or under surveillance by the criminal justice system than ever before. 1 in 3 Black men are currently serving time. SOUL decided to portrayed slavery in 1814, share cropper lynching in 1914, and mass incarceration in 2014 to represent persistent act of warehousing Black people. Further information about this discourse can be found in Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow.
This marks the occasion of our first experiment with performance art as a medium for protesting. Activist of color laid out, exposed to the elements for 4 hours as an act of indignation for the time Mike Brown’s body spent exposed. At the conclusion of the piece we were moved at how profound if felt to be able to simply get up and walk away. It is out of remembrance of all unarmed victims of deadly force that we give our bodies in protest.
We covered the LOVE sign on the campus of University of Pennsylvania with the names of Black and Brown people who were killed by police and vigilantes.
While mass media coverage of Ferguson became over shadowed by Ebola and ISIS, justice for Michael Brown and the countless others has yet to be served, we were making a public statement to say “no, we have not forgotten you, and we will not remain silent about this oppression.”
Ignite Your Soul 