I wanted to share info about an exhibit at Mass MOCA by artist Shaun Leonardo called “The Breath of Empty Space,” which addresses violence as its perpetrated on young people of color. The exhibit was originally scheduled for MOCA Cleveland and was cancelled under controversy (https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/06/moca-cleveland-apologizes-second-time-publicly-for-canceling-show-after-black-artist-accuses-it-of-censorship.html). The description of the exhibit and the artist is on the Mass MOCA website is here: https://massmoca.org/event/shaun-leonardo-the-breath-of-empty-space/.

An interview with Shaun goes much deeper into his art and activism practice and is really worth watching, even for a little bit (it’s over an hour long).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUJguihsQMk

Shaun discusses the work, the censorship, the way art can engage a community in having difficult but potentially healing dialog. Shaun says: “I take some of the most widely disseminated images of police violence, both recent and historical, and make choices that I think will slow down our looking.” By slowing down, by creating a space for engaging with these images in a different way other than flashed on a screen, it creates a space to have a dialog.

Here are some highlights of the interview:

In addition to drawing, Shaun works in what he calls Social Engagement projects. Some examples are:

“Assembly” is a Diversion program, where he collaborates with the D.A.s office in Brookline to work with young people in Brookline aged 18 to 25 who have been arrested for misdemeanors and felonies. Instead of going to jail, they work with Shaun Leonardo and cofounder nonprofit “Recess” in a performance-based program and after 4 weeks, their cases are cleared and records are sealed. The program removes language and works with how a story can be conveyed through the body – how the body holds trauma. They collectively investigate on their own terms the experience of trauma. The young people embody their story and then invite others to join them in their memories and “occupy their story and sense it within themselves.”

I Can’t Breathe – A performance in galleries, museums, community centers, schools, on the street. Participants are invited to a self-defense class, eventually addressing the aggressive acts of police culminating in the choke hold both as victim and aggressor.

Eulogy – New Orleans style jazz funeral. https://massmoca.org/event/the-eulogy/

Primitive Games - Four groups that are engaged with violence go through separate workshops – NYPD, military veterans, those impacted by violence in the community, firearm enthusiasts. For the public presentation, two intermingled teams are created and asked to debate the issue of gun violence only through body language.

His drawings Studio practice as its represented in the exhibit, creates carefully rendered images from body cams, dashboard cams addressing violence, and by doing so creates a space for difficult conversations. The media determines the interpretation of the images on the screen. We are not given the opportunity to sit with the images and contemplate them on our own terms. He provides a space to “grapple with them differently.” “Healing is a process that requires, often, that we stay with the trauma… In the difficulty we can find ways to collaborate, cooperate, dig through the material and have conversations carefully that hold BIPOC with care. Conversations which I think are necessary.”