Artist Tim Rollins, Springfield Middle School to Create Works for ‘Du Bois in Our Time’ Exhibit at UMass Amherst

 

 

DATE:           Thursday, March 28

TIME:            2:30 p.m.

WHERE:       Renaissance Public School, Room 50, 1170 Carew St., Springfield

 

Renowned artist Tim Rollins and members of his collective, Kids of Survival (K.O.S.), is conducting a special residency/workshop March 26-28 with middle school students and teachers at Springfield’s Renaissance Public School.

 

Sponsored by the University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA) at UMass Amherst, the project will combine lessons in reading and writing with the production of works of art. In a process Tim Rollins and K.O.S. call “jamming,” Rollins or one of the students reads aloud from a selected text while the other members draw and relate the stories to their own experiences. Their completed art work will be available for viewing.

 

For the Springfield project, Rollins has selected “Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil,” an important literary work by W.E.B. Du Bois published in 1920, incorporating autobiographical information as well as essays and spirituals. The results of this collaborative workshop/residency will be featured in a major fall exhibition, Du Bois in Our Time, at UMCA that will focus on the intersection of art and the major issues of our time, centered on the legacy of Du Bois and the causes he championed.