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

VIEW A VIDEO ABOUT THIS EVENT PRODUCED BY THE NORTH CAROLINA ARTS COUNCIL

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.

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.

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.

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