Durham Get Together, April 25, 4–8 p.m.

Friday, April 25, 4–8 p.m
DURHAM GET TOGETHER
Center for Documentary Studies, 1317 W. Pettigrew Street, Durham, North Carolina

DIRECTIONS: http://cds.aas.duke.edu/about/here.html

In conjunction with Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life, a project of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University

Join artist Brett Cook for a Face Up Celebration / The Annual Lehman Brady Presentation

Music / Food / Exhibit Opening / Activities

Durham Get Together, the culminating spring event for the Face Up project at the Center for Documentary Studies, will feature the opening of an exhibition, a dialogue with artist Brett Cook on building community, mural coloring, quilting, a community labyrinth, and live music.

Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life is a documentary arts project devoted to building community in Southwest Central Durham through the collaborative creation of a series of large-scale, locally inspired public murals. Brett Cook, whose unique approach combines drawing, painting, and photography with ethnographic fieldwork and community organizing (www.brett-cook.com), is coordinating the project in January–May 2008. www.faceupproject.com

Brett Cook is the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke and UNC–Chapel Hill for Spring 2008. This collaborative, cross-campus arrangement involves distinguished writers, photographers, filmmakers, and other practitioners and scholars of the documentary arts who teach courses on both campuses and engage in lectures, screenings, and other events for students and the general public.

Murals
The first mural–featuring the late Pauli Murray, a poet, activist, and Episcopal priest who grew up in Durham–has been installed on the outside of the TROSA furniture store on Foster Street in Durham. TROSA has been an enthusiastic part of the project, attending every event and assisting with mural installation. Seven murals will be going up on TROSA’s James Street campus–one is a portrait of founder Kevin MacDonald and two of his colleagues. A listing of mural locations will be available at the Durham Get Together event.

Project Exhibit
Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life is an interactive, multimedia exhibition of images, documents, and artifacts that both inspired and came out of the many social collaborations of the Face Up project. The exhibition includes video, collaborative Community Encyclopedias, a Community Quilt, and a mural.

Dialogue on Building a Loving Community
Join in a conversion with Lehman Brady Visiting Professor Brett Cook, reflecting on the ongoing action of the Face Up project.

Entertainment
4-5 p.m. Square dancing and old time music
5-6 p.m. TROSA band
6-7 p.m. Robert Trowers Quartet

Create a Community Labyrinth
A labyrinth is a single path with no forks or dead ends, winding through four quadrants of a circle to bring the traveler to the circle’s center and out again. One of the oldest contemplative tools known to human kind, it has been used in many cultures. For this labyrinth, select a pair of shoes and inscribe them with a thought about community, add them to the labyrinth, then consider the thoughts of others as you walk the path. Facilitator: Bryant Holsenbeck

Face Up Project Mural Coloring
Participants will be a part of creating colorful new murals including images of the Six Paramitas, or principles of enlightened living, and an Aztec calendar. These images were selected to highlight the sacred quality in all of us as members of the Durham community. You are invited to color the murals in any way you like. Please express yourself freely and choose to be a part of creating these new neighborhood monuments. Facilitators: Face Up Team

Quilting
Quilting is an art form embraced by many cultures around the globe. Each quilt artist draws from his or her own culture when selecting fabrics, batting materials, and quilt patterns. Some create quilts with exacting geometric symmetry while others prefer a more freeform improvisational approach. At this event, you are invited to express your own stitching on a quilt, as part of a communal artistic collaboration. Facilitator: Barbara Lau

Revolution Encyclopedia
A wide assortment of visual art supplies will accompany sketchbooks, the material focus of this station. Participants are free to express themselves in the sketchbooks regarding community, connection, and other related topics of choice. Facilitators: Face Up Team

Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project
Learn about the six neighborhoods that make up Southwest Central Durham: Burch Avenue, Lyon Park, West End, Lakewood Park, Morehead Hill, and Tuscaloosa-Lakewood. Historically segregated into African American and white neighborhoods, this area is becoming more integrated and is striving to reach out to the many newly emerging Latino enclaves within its borders. The residents and organizations that make up the Quality of Life Project are working to break down economic, social, and cultural boundaries by building intentional bridges of common experience and shared concern.

The Face Up project embraces and advances this approach through an artist residency/public art process that engages and amplifies the voices and stories of community members through the creation of monumental works of art, allowing them to access the power of creativity and discover new avenues to community membership and involvement.

Event Catering
Azteca Grill
LocoPops
Palace International
TROSA & Durham Food Co-Op

This event was made possible by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Duke University Office of Community Affairs, Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project, North Carolina Arts Council, Council for the Arts, Office of the Provost - Duke University, City of Durham Parks and Recreation Department, Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professorship in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Greenfire Development, Visual Studies Initiative - Duke University, Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies - Duke University, Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Mary D.B.T. Semans Foundation, Calvary Ministries of the West End Inc., Office of the Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations - Duke University, TROSA, Tuscaloosa-Lakewood Neighborhood Association, Azteca Grill, Chicken Hut, and the residents of Southwest Central Durham.

West End Block Party, April 13, 2–6 p.m.

Sunday, April 13, 2-6 p.m.
WEST END BLOCK PARTY
Lyon Park Field, Cornell and Halley Streets, Durham, North Carolina

In conjunction with Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life, a project of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University

Food / Music / Art / Fun / FREE

Weather Forecast: Lovely. Mix of sun and clouds, highs in the low 60s.

JOIN US.
At the party we will be coloring murals depicting past and present champions of Southwest Central Durham. We will also have a labyrinth made of shoes, monument building with the Scrap Exchange, community quilting, soccer activities, sketchbooks, great food from the Chicken Hut and Azteca Grill, and fabulous music including DJ Rich Medina. [SEE MORE DETAILS BELOW.]

Face Up is a documentary arts project devoted to building and strengthening community in Southwest Central Durham through the collaborative creation of a series of large-scale, locally inspired public murals. Artist Brett Cook, whose unique approach combines drawing, painting, and photography with ethnographic fieldwork and community organizing, is collaborating on the Durham project in January–May 2008.

WEST END BLOCK PARTY
A Collaborative Community Celebration

Listing of Stations
Courtesy of the Face Up Team

Invocation
What better way to celebrate the start of this event than with our friend and neighbor Hazelene Umstead. Since returning to her childhood home in Durham in 1993, Hazelene has become a glowing presence in the community. As she states, she hoped to restore the vitality of her neighborhood because she was afraid that the “laughter had faded away.” Hazelene has succeeded in bringing laughter and fellowship to this neighborhood through her commitment to the vision of a loving community.

Create a Community Labyrinth
A labyrinth is a single path with no forks or dead ends, winding through all four quadrants of a circle to bring the traveler to the circle’s center and out again. It is one of the oldest contemplative tools known to humankind and has been used in many cultures throughout time. Select a pair of shoes and inscribe them with a thought about community, add them to the labyrinth, then consider the thoughts of others as you walk the path.
Facilitator: Bryant Holsenbeck

DJ Rich Medina
DJ Rich Medina lives, breathes, and revels in sharing the type of music that makes a listener remember her/his soul. It is this awareness of soul that brings listeners back time and again to hear Rich spin: heads nod, bodies sway, emotions expand and coalesce. He lures you in and makes you forget who you were before the music began – he spins you into the now, into the moment, into the vital essence of who you are. Rich Medina has always seen music as a form of celebration and rejoicing.

Face Up Project Collaborative Coloring
Drawings based on photographs of local residents have been transferred to larger-than-life canvases which will be installed as murals in Durham. The murals are about residents from the six neighborhoods that make up Southwest Central Durham and their ideas about community. West End Block Party participants are invited to color the murals in any way they like. Please express yourself freely and choose to be a part of creating these new neighborhood monuments.
Facilitators: Face Up Team

Quilting
Quilting is an artform embraced by many cultures across the globe, and each quilt artist draws from his or her own culture when selecting fabrics, batting materials, and quilt patterns. Some create quilts with exacting geometric symmetry, while others prefer a more free-form improvisational approach. At the West End Block Party, we can use our own ideas to make quilt blocks for our own unique creation.
Facilitators: Candace Thomas and Barbara Lau

Revolution Encyclopedia
A wide assortment of visual art supplies accompanies sketchbooks that are the material focus of this station. Collaborators are free to express themselves in the sketchbooks regarding community, connection, and whatever they may want to say.
Facilitators: Face Up Team

Scrap Exchange Building Community Monuments
The Scrap Exchange is a nonprofit creative reuse center located in downtown Durham. Its mission is to promote creativity, environmental awareness, and community through reuse of collecting industrial discards through a retail store, community events, parties and workshops. We’ll be using loads of this wonderful material to create personal monuments to our community.
Facilitators: Scrap Exchange Staff

SEEDS
SEEDS Community Garden encourages respect for life, for earth, and for each other. SEEDS helps individuals, neighborhoods, and communities grow together through gardening, gathering, and education. This Sunday we’ll have a variety of free seeds and garden information available. Plan a garden for your yard or your whole block!
Facilitators: Seeds Staff

Azteca Grill
Owner Magaly Espriella has succeeded in creating a local restaurant that has become a vibrant presence in Durham, a presence that deliciously reminds us of the rich cultural contributions of our Latino neighbors. Azteca Grill is known locally for their high quality food, and more importantly, as a social gathering place for their entire community.

Chicken Hut
Serving traditional soul food cooked with lots of love, the Chicken Hut has been favorite gathering place for generations of Durham residents.

Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project
Six neighborhoods make up Southwest Central Durham: Burch Avenue, Lyon Park, West End, Lakewood Park, Morehead Hill, and Tuscaloosa-Lakewood. Historically segregated into African American and white neighborhoods, this area is becoming more integrated and is striving to reach out to the many newly emerging Latino enclaves within its borders. The residents and organizations that make up the Quality of Life Project are working to break down economic, social, and cultural boundaries by building intentional bridges of common experience and shared concern.

The Face Up project embraces and advances this approach through an artist residency/public art process that engages and amplifies the voices and stories of community members through the creation of monumental works of art, allowing them to access the power of creativity and discover new avenues to community membership and involvement.

This event was made possible in part by the people, Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University, Duke University Office of Community Affairs (OCA), Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project (QOL), The North Carolina Arts Council, Council for the Arts, Office of the Provost - Duke University, the City of Durham Parks and Recreation Department, Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professorship in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Greenfire Development, Visual Studies Initiative - Duke University, Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies - Duke University, Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Mary D.B.T. Semans Foundation, Calvary Ministries of the West End, Inc., Office of the Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations - Duke University, TROSA, Tuscaloosa-Lakewood Neighborhood Association, Azteca Grill, Chicken Hut, and the residents of Southwest Central Durham.

“A Dialogue on Art and Social Collaboration” with Brett Cook and Wendy Ewald, March 17, 7 p.m.

Held at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

Photographer Wendy Ewald and painter Brett Cook first worked together in 1999, when Ewald invited Cook to work with teachers in Durham. Since then they have been discussing and refining the ways in which they make collaborative art. Last fall, at Amherst College, they created their first public installation/exhibition together. In A Dialogue on Art and Social Collaboration, they will describe how they each formerly conceived and carried out a collaborative project, one that involved constructing rich, welcoming environments for their partners to work in—in addition to making their own photographs and paintings. They will also talk about how they melded their working methods in the making of Amherst College Portraits: A Community Collaboration with Wendy Ewald and Brett Cook.

Wendy Ewald
Wendy Ewald is a conceptual artist who has collaborated with communities in the United States and throughout the world for more than thirty years. Ewald’s approach to photography probes questions of identity and cultural differences. She has received many honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 1992. She has had solo exhibitions at major museums and was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial. She is currently a visiting artist at Amherst College, a senior research associate at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and an artist-in-residence at the John Hope Franklin Center, also at Duke University. Towards the Promised Land, published by Steidl/Artangel, is her tenth book.

Brett Cook
Brett Cook creates artwork and experiences that defy classification in any single discipline. His work has been shown at museums and galleries since 1991, concurrent with a practice manifested in public projects since 1984. The public works have been executed in the United States, from California to Maine, and internationally in Brazil, Barbados, and Mexico. His public collaborations include a South Central Los Angeles project addressing divinity; the Development/Gentrification Project installed in ten locations throughout Harlem; and a project addressing segregation at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While some of his work has been commissioned by museums or public agencies, other projects have been self-initiated interventions on abandoned spaces. His use of participatory ethnographic strategies, progressive educational pedagogy, and community organizing connect his work to exceptionally wide audiences. He is a seasoned Ashtangi and student of many forms of yoga, meditation, and healing, which inform his process and products.

Cook is currently the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor for Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for Spring 2008. He is also working with Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life (www.faceupproject.org), a project of the Center for Documentary Studies in Southwest Central Durham.

Webisode 02: “Duke Today” Video on the March 1 Community Art Fiesta

Community Art Fiesta: Saturday, March 1, 2–5 p.m.

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University invites you to a

COMMUNITY ART FIESTA

In conjunction with Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life

SATURDAY, MARCH 1 * 2–5 p.m. * REFRESHMENTS * MUSIC

Location: Lakewood YMCA, 2119 Chapel Hill Road, Durham NC

Face Up is a documentary arts project devoted to building and strengthening community in Southwest Central Durham through the collaborative creation of a series of large-scale, locally inspired public murals.

Artist Brett Cook, whose unique approach combines drawing, painting, and photography with ethnographic fieldwork and community organizing, is collaborating on the Durham project in January–May 2008.

Questions: 919-660-3676 or 919-660-3664

Fall 2007 Residency Slideshow

HEALING THE PAST AND CREATING THE FUTURE BY LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

Click the image below to view a slide show of the fall 2007 residency.

Pauli Murray Celebration: November 18, 2007, 3:30–5:30 p.m.

Hold the Date! Brett Cook’s fall residency will culminate in a Pauli Murray birthday celebration and mural unveiling at the Community Family Life and Recreation Center at Lyon Park, 1313 Halley Street, Durham, North Carolina. (The Center is located at the corner of Halley and Kent Streets about midway between Lakewood Avenue and Morehead Avenue south and west of downtown Durham.)

Refreshments served / free / everyone welcome.

Workshops: November 7, 9, & 10, 2007

Open to the General Public

Wednesday, November 7
Workshop, Smith Warehouse Drawing Studio, 1:15–2:30 p.m.

Friday, November 9
Workshop and House Party, 912 Arnette Avenue, 7 p.m.

Saturday, November 10
Workshop, Brightleaf Square, Suite 25-D, 2–4 p.m.

Bring yourself, your family, and your friends. Bring your ideas, your energy, and your knowledge. Each workshop can accommodate 30 people. All supplies and snacks will be provided. Please RSVP to faceupproject@duke.edu or by calling 919-660-3676.

Fall Residency: November 6–18, 2007

Artist Brett Cook will be in Durham for two weeks in November 2007, when he will collaboratively create a monumental work of public art focused on the spirit and legacy of Pauli Murray, an acclaimed human right activist who grew up in Durham’s West End neighborhood. Community members and Duke University faculty, staff, and students are invited to participate in three workshops that will include participatory exercises, multi-media creations, and dialogue. The residency exemplifies the liberating consequences of community building.

For more info about Pauli Murray: http://www.ncwriters.org/services/lhof/inductees/pmurray.htm

Slide Show: “Brett Cook: Public and Collaborative Projects”

Click the image below to view a slide show of Brett Cook’s previous public and collaborative work.

http://cds.aas.duke.edu/faceup/slide_show/index.html