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Dr. Audra Buck-Coleman

Designer, Educator, Author & Social Design Researcher

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BMORE Than The Story

Students attending a public high school in Freddie Gray’s neighborhood collaborated with University of Maryland design students on an exhibition about the 2015 Baltimore Uprising, Gray’s death, structural violence, police brutality, and related issues.

Type of Project
  • Client Work
  • Experiential Design
  • Research
  • Teaching
  • Writing
Subject Matter
  • Discrimination
  • Prejudice, Stereotypes and Bias
  • Racism
  • Social Justice
  • Structural Violence
Students in red t-shirts standing below a sculpture of a vulture that has a camera for a head.

Summary

67 Collaborators and contributors
26 Weeks on display
6 Funding organizations

Students attending a public high school in Freddie Gray’s neighborhood collaborated with University of Maryland design students on an exhibition about the 2015 Baltimore Uprising, Gray’s death, structural violence, police brutality, and related issues. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum hosted the exhibition, which opened during the one-year anniversary of Gray’s death. It then traveled to The Motor House in Baltimore.

During post-project interviews, the high school students spoke of how their artistic practices and engagement with this project mitigated the effects of structural violence and positively influenced their social psychological processes. This research illustrates art’s multifaceted and productive role for victims of structural violence. More broadly, these findings add to the research about creative processes’ potential agency in addressing structural racism and violence.

Collaborators

Martin Goggins, Naliyah Kaya, Lamontre Randall, Koli Tengella, Augusta Fells Savage high school students, UMD 2016 senior design cohort

Collaborating institutions

  • Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts
  • The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture
  • The Motor House

Awards & Recognition

Awards

The project received awards from the Core77, Design Incubation, the American Advertising Federation, and City Paper’s 2016 Best Of Baltimore.

Details

The students created different components to address the salient issues in their lives: feelings of being constantly surveilled and under watch by police, the one-sided media portrayal of the youth, police brutality and how society stereotypes them.

The Vultures

photographed at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore MD, 3 May 2016.

Vultures: a carnivorous bird that scavenges the skies and land searching for dead or dying prey in which to feast upon.

The AFSIVA students saw little difference between these winged predators and Baltimore’s police helicopters, which to them are always watching, always searching for that next meal.

A monitor showing four frames of security camera footage. Next to it is a sculpture of a vulture with a security camera for a head.

The four vultures installed in the space have functioning security cameras as their heads. A large-screen monitor installed in the space broadcasts the feed from the cameras. Exhibit visitors are surveilled as they explore the space, mimicking how the students feel they are under constant watch by police.

The Timeline

A timeline with a prodimant graphic of a fist in the air.
Photo courtesy of Mike Morgan

The students created a 25-foot timeline, which runs from 1960s to present day, listing the names of approximately 1,350 people of color who have died while in police custody. Historical, political, and economic events, noted in the circles, provide context for the timespan.

The Posters

A black light responsive area of the exhibit. A sculpture of a vulture is in the top right.
Photo courtesy of Mike Morgan

These posters offer the AFSIVA students an opportunity to rebut those stories. They show quotes from a Baltimore Police Spokesman, the Baltimore Mayor, and media personalities about the youth and the Uprising. Augusta Fells students countered those responses with their own, written in clear day-glow paint.

A man shines a blacklight on a poster. New words are revealed.
Photo courtesy of Mike Morgan

Visitors shine provided blacklight flashlights on the posters to view how the students refute these sentiments.

The AFSIVA Students’ Voices

Two people are watching a video of a student speaking in the exhibition.

In a video, the high school students addressed the aspects of their identity that are important to them and defy stereotypes.

During the exhibit opening, the AFSIVA students treated the audience to spoken word, socially conscious rap, and a cappella singing to address issues of social inequity to convey their ideas for healing, understanding, and hope.

  • Students performing an auditorium.
  • A panel discussion made up of students.

After the performance, the collaborators and local activists participated in a panel discussion about the project and ways to address Baltimore’s chronic issues.

Learn More

Behind the Scenes:
Behind the Scenes: BMORE Than The Story
Awards:
BMORE Than the Story recognized by Core77

See More Projects

Attendees listen to a speaker
Research:
#SayItLikeItIs
#SayItLikeItIs was a daylong symposium for Baltimore area high school students. They discussed violence in their schools and neighborhoods, how art could help promote their mental health, and ways to improve their school environments.
Screengrab from the Second Life installation. Sixteen human-looking avatars are standing in the illustrated room. Introductory information about Redefine/ABLE is on the main panel closest to tour leader, David London. Nine large wooden-framed panels with exhibition information are posted around the space.
Teaching:
Redefine/ABLE
University of Maryland students explored how physical and digital museum spaces can be more inclusive and accessible and how design might interrogate ideas of “normal” and ableism.
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