Making Community: Voices from the dialogues

"Making Art, Making Change" was a workshop by Alternate ROOTS Resources of Social Change, in partnership with Evoking History program at the 2003 Spoleto USA Festival. What follows are notes from the workshop videotape, bringing forth the voices of those who were there.

Video still of "Making Art, Making Change" discussion showing Nayo Watkins flanked by Frank Martin (l) and Pam Korza (r).

"In the environment of a transitional modern world, home may be what existed before… before the vacant lot, the shiny new corporate structure, the busy tourist attraction, the restorations and preservations, the displacements and relocations, the gentrification and globalization. Now, home lingers in memories and histories and in the other unspoken and sometimes glamorized legends and lore of time past. Our sense of home waits to be rediscovered and reconstructed in values and visions for a structure of equity and opportunity. In this context art is a tool for collective visioning, for hammering out meaningful possibilities, for chiseling out the shape of new homes and communities, for imagining what social justice will look like… Race has played a major part in how home is defined, how home is maintained, how home is lost." —Nayo Watkins

"Slavery. History. It seems that it would be a much more valuable thing to look at racism as it is today. I do worry sometimes with the focus of racial discussions on slavery… perhaps they promote the idea the main objection blacks have today is slavery and I don’t think that is so. The main objection blacks have today deals with present day situation." —Darryl Wellington

"What I see is a lack of education. I hear white people be able to deny that they sometimes benefited from slavery. I hear black people say that they were taught that everybody was a slave…" —Kathy deNobriga

"I am here and I am white and I want to be a part of that conversation and I’ve heard a lot of black people talk and I am honest of God grateful for this." —The daughter of Sam Watson.

"There is no race but a social construct." —Frank Martin

"All our people were slaved. They were enslaved, hurt and utilized. And our people are being taught in a very nice way that it was OK, because look at where you are now! It was not OK and I agree with you about the holocaust, we too have to tell the story and that’s why this African-American Museum that is coming here has got to tell the truth." —La’Sheia Oubre’

"I’ve never understood why black people must feel ashamed of slavery. It ought to be us who should feel that way." —Sam Watson

"Caucasians in this room, you need to talk, you have been too quiet and it is ticking me off… Everybody in this room are dealing with a known medically post-traumatic-stress syndrome. And one of the things this country has never dealt with is the effect of 400 + years of slavery, the effect psychologically, on the people who participated in both sides of the process." —John Wright

"So I looked at it (the performance "Navigating Home" by S. Lacy) as if it was a painting and the mix of white and black people, I have never seen it in Charleston before. Does this represent Charleston? In Charleston I see the black and I see the white neighborhoods. I see all the true reality of the mix and the untrue reality of the representation. " —Gwylène Gallimard

Video still of "Making Art, Making Change" discussion showing (clockwise from lower left) La’Sheia Oubre’, Kristen Rhodes, Pam Korza, Sam Watson, Gwyléne Gallimard, Arianne King Comer, Latonia Wallace and Beate Enge

"This piece of art created a sense of community, even temporary, it really pulled people together, it made a new community. What does it mean for social change? What does it mean for tomorrow?" —Nayo Watkins

"Last time somebody not from my community came in … they decided what they wanted it to look like and how they can capitalize on it and retransmit it to people in my neighborhood. And when they left what I thought was Hip Hop became all of a sudden being intellectual and things of that nature. Skills from your heart were no longer precepts." —Omari Fox

"Someone, a participant at one of the tables said: ‘We were so diverse that it was great to share, but there is no reason ever for us to get back together again. Because it would be already car problems, we don’t have the same community, we don’t have the same grounds, so we cannot work together, we can only talk together." —Reported by Gayle Gallimard

"What I see in the city, there is a lot of mobilization going on here, there is no organizing going on in this town that I can find….. Organizing is long-term. We investigate, evaluate, negotiate and implement." —Nayo Watkins

The following comments were collected outside of the workshops through e-mail or discussions.

"While I was only in the conference for a short time, I will say that the closing remarks (Sunday) of Delvina Westcott and LaSheia Oubre were inspiring testimonials: evidence of the effects of such a session and, having seen them participate over the last few years, evidence of a growing process. Also because these women are impassioned do-ers, they spoke to putting thought, learning and concepts into action, thus, they are models. Take a look at what they had to say!" —Mary Jane Jacob

"The workshop was so powerful, but its impact seems synonymous with the frustrations it engendered. This is perhaps because there was a tension from the beginning moments between what seemed promised and imminent and what was allowed to unfold. ‘Shared History’ was provocative and, to me, the most important part of the weekend. It invited frank discussion about race and racial perspective. The opportunity, it became apparent, was especially rich since the film’s producer and some of its participants were present. I didn’t and do not understand why ‘we’ weren’t allowed to talk to ‘them.’ Once I realized that a discussion was proceeding about people in the room as if they weren’t present, I felt part of something that was disconcerting and deeply disrespectful. A group task can sometimes require rough curtailment. But our task and agenda were never clearly explained and we weren’t given the opportunity to buy in. Where were we hurtling off to? All that said, it was a beautiful workshop. Its faults seem mostly about failed communication among people coming from myriad perspectives. Its triumphs were in even making the attempt to talk about what we usually leave unspoken." —Dana Brown

"I am in agreement that the workshop starting with ‘Shared History’ was very significant in its effect to generate dialogue with a diverse group . But I am aware that the issue of really getting to the bare truths and honest dialogue from most participants will take some doing. It’s like unraveling an onion, the issues of racism, social change, uncovering the oppression and ignorance from past experiences are deeply imbedded. I sensed resistance to really share because there is a numbness that comes first when confronted with revisiting past experiences. These opportunities like ‘Making Art, Making Home’….’Shared History’ do in time peel away at the layers of our onions. I applaud the initiators. Thank you! More…more…more.." —Arianne King Comer

"Hi! I agree with the writer below (I think it’s Dana??) who feels that sometimes the workshop agenda took precedence over the needs of the participants for discussion of a particular issues…and the workshop did have.. or appear to take on… the intention of accomplishing particular things I suppose, but a more open, less rigid follow-up discussion may be beneficial….for some of us…..how this will relate precisely to the creation of artwork is unclear…so there were varying levels of involvement simultaneously unfolding. I am personally interested in constructs of ‘quality’ with regard to artistic production…can such a construct have any meaning in the reality of post-modern artistic expression? Is everything creative and permissible as ‘art’…if not…who has the authority to limit? These are the kinds of questions that I feel compelled to address…and these questions have a direct impact on the related ‘standards’ and constructs of ‘race’….by freeing ourselves from the tyranny of ‘race’- based assessments of reality…do we unsettle the status-quo with the chaos and uncertainty of a social order without stratification?? Is that a bad thing? Is that a good thing? Why or why not? If we have rules….(and we probably must have rules of some kind)…..must they be in some sense tyrannical? Is tyranny, and its attendant reliance upon accepted, canonical standardization sometimes advantageous or even beneficial? When and why?….I am very interested in discussing these ‘structure’ questions because of their relationship to the workshop and to the Spoleto presentations/performances and impact on day to day artistic production…more later!" —FM

"I’m always struck by the willingness—at whatever level—of people coming together to talk about the issue of race in the U.S. even though it should be an obvious concern to ALL. So the workshop reconfirmed to me that there are people out there that understand the importance of serious, uncomfortable discussion. It’s great when people squirm toward reality. If the video can capture that—great. My experience in making ‘Shared History’ confirms to me how deeply embedded the rituals of race are; how we all walk so carefully and gingerly around the issue. I remind myself that I think in the workshop someone said the issue is not so much about slavery as about racism. Yes, but I do think the more we know historically about what happened to individuals-"black and white"—the better we are able to understand how deeply we have all been affected. I look for the glimpses of humanity without the sentimentality although I can easily fall into myself. That’s why ‘Shared History’ has a number of ‘watchers’—like Frank Martin, who can help steady us along the path without sinking into blame, accusation and frustration. He helps us find a way to have the reality with the feelings and not be so overwhelmed that we have to stop. Thank you Gayle, Frank and Alternate ROOTS." —Felicia Dryden

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Original CAN/API publication: October 2003