Cleveland was founded by three women in 1968. According to Megan Reich, deputy director at MOCA, they believed that blending art with social issues is a concoction for change. MOCA continues this tradition by hosting "For Freedoms: Faith, Art and (in)Justice."

The discussion will focus on various topics, including faith, incarceration and redemption. The panel will include local artist Gwendolyn Garth, Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries CEO Andrew Genszler, North Carolina artist Sherrill Roland and the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, an activist, musician, artist and theologian from St. Louis.

Pitt Law Black Law Student Association and Pitt Graduate and Professional Student Government hosted the Jumpsuit project. Sherrill Roland's work can be found at the intersection of law, advocacy and fine art. Like so many of the BLSA speakers we've heard from this year, Sherrill has taken control of the situation that he was put in, and channeled his energy into positive change. He speaks about issues of mental health, racial injustices, and how disproportionate the American incarceration system is. What is different about Sherrill is the tool that he is using to instigate policy change: Art.

A NIGHT OF PHILOSOPHY AND IDEAS is an all-night marathon of philosophical debate, performances, screenings, readings, and music.

This all-night philosophy event (7 pm to 7 am) featured dozens of acclaimed philosophers, social critics, and thinkers, including Simon Critchley, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Joan Halifax, Jack Halberstam, Bruno Bosteels, and others. Co-presented with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

Fictions is a survey of recent work by nineteen emerging artists of African descent who live and work across the United States. The artists in the exhibition engage with a variety of media—including video, photography, drawing and sculpture—with some combining multiple artistic practices to create large-scale installations. The works in Fictions investigate questions at the core of The Studio Museum in Harlem’s mission to be the nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally, and for work inspired by black culture. They draw inspiration from diverse sources—such as everyday objects, childhood memories, current and historic events, and the body—often creating parallel or alternate narratives that complicate fact, fiction and memory. 

The exhibition is the fifth in a series of emerging artist exhibitions presented by the Studio Museum, following Freestyle (2001), Frequency (2005–06), Flow (2008) and Fore (2012–13). Like its predecessors, Fictions illustrates the diversity and complexity of artistic practices by artists of African descent. Tracing the artistic developments since Fore, Fictions emphasizes the development of narrative content in contemporary art over the past five years. From the personal to the political and the everyday to the imagined, Fictions examines the stories that form the foundation of these artists’ practices.

Photo Credit: Rebecca Alice Bennett

2017 Correctional Education Association of Ohio Conference, Keynote Speaker.


Photo Courtesy of Wayne Perry

LACE: Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

North Carolina-based artist Sherrill Roland performs The Jumpsuit Project in Hollywood for two days only. Located outside the doors of LACE, Sherrill shares his personal story and engages in conversation about incarceration with passersby on Hollywood Boulevard.
 

Brooklyn Public Library

The Jumpsuit Project is a socially engaged art project inspired by Sherrill Roland’s personal experience in the prison system. Roland was wrongfully convicted of a crime and spent nearly a year in state prison before the conviction was thrown out. A year-and-a-half after being released, he was exonerated of all charges. As a response, Roland began The Jumpsuit Project: he wears an orange jumpsuit,  similar to the one he wore while in prison, in public places in order to spark conversation about incarceration and its impact on individuals, families and communities.  Over the course of three days, Roland will bring his project to Central Library. The public is invited to ask him questions, share their stories and experiences with the criminal justice system and start to combat the stigma surrounding incarceration.


Photography by Rebecca Alice Bennet and Gregg Richards

Art, Activism, Race and the Law

This cross-disciplinary panel inspired by themes in the exhibition "Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush" will discuss the complex dynamics of race and the law, public policy, the justice system and art activism. With Jillian Johnson, Durham City Councilwoman and director of operations at Southern Vision Alliance; Sherrill Roland, artist, activist and creator of the Jumpsuit Project; Trina Jones, Duke law professor; and William A. Darity, Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy at Duke. Free and open to the public.


Photography by Todd Turner

Open Engagement 2017 — JUSTICE is presented in partnership with The School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and marks the second year of a three-year cycle that situated the conference in the Bay Area (2016 — POWER) in partnership with the Oakland Museum of California and the California College of the Arts, and will complete in New York in partnership with the Queens Museum (2018 — SUSTAINABILITY).

OE is the largest artist-led conference dedicated to expanding the dialogue around, and creating a site of care for, the field of socially engaged art. Founded in 2007, OE has evolved into an unparalleled hub for practitioners and audiences to assemble. OE employs an inclusive open call model that supports emerging and established artists and organizers, highlights the voices of students alongside professionals, and collaborates closely with national institutions to further the networks of support for socially engaged art. OE is committed to the power of art to enact radical social change.

Oakland City Hall

The Jumpsuit Project is a socially engaged art project inspired by SHERRILL ROLAND’s personal experience in the prison system. Roland was wrongfully convicted of a crime and spent nearly a year in state prison before the conviction was thrown out. A year-and-a-half after being released, he was exonerated of all charges. As a response, Roland began The Jumpsuit Project: he wears an orange jumpsuit, similar to the one he wore while in prison, in public places in order to spark conversation about incarceration and its impact on individuals, families and communities. The public is invited to ask him questions, share their stories and experiences with the criminal justice system, and start to combat the stigma surrounding incarceration.


Photography by Meg Allen

I received the Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award at the UNCG Campus Activities & Programs, 2017 Excellence Awards Banquet.

University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

'AFTER THE WAKE UP' is an interactive art installation, upstairs at the Greensboro Project Space, that will have viewers physically crave into the walls, support columns and window frames. While Sherrill was incarcerated in Washington, DC, he painted the vacant cells before new inmates were moved in. He discovered carvings on, underneath and behind surfaces that were left behind. It was a small gesture to leave a mark in a place that was created to hide you from society. Even after he painted over those surfaces, the marks were not entirely erased. 

At the Greensboro Project Space, Sherrill invites visitors to participate in leaving their own marks. The visitors will use handmade tools to carve their answers, on designated surfaces, in response to questions that Sherrill wrestles with everyday while wearing an orange jumpsuit.

This exhibition features new work by seven MFA candidates in the UNCG School of Art: Caroline Bugby, Codey Gallas, Kate Gordon, Julia Caston, Joyce Watkins King, Sherrill Roland, and Charles Williams. Reflecting a variety of studio areas, their work represents the culmination of each student's unique experience at UNCG. The exhibition demonstrates the research, reflection, experimentation, critical thinking, and artistic skills honed by these artists while in the program.


Photography by Laath Martin

James B. Dudley high School
Greensboro, NC

"Thank you, Sherrill, for coming and spending your day with some of the students at James B. Dudley High School.. I know that having you step through our doors, put on your jumpsuit, and talk to our kids left an impact. We may not "see" the outcome today, tomorrow, or ever, but just know the students heard your message. You and your work are appreciated more than you will ever know."  - Kayte Farkas


Photography by Todd Turner

'Art in Response to War' Honors College course. 
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

'The Making of the African Diaspora' Honors College course.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

'Criminal Justice : 317'
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

'Sociology 225 ( Race, Class & Gender)' 
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

'Art and Politics', Honors College course.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

'HSS 198 Honors Colloquium Class I,' Honors College course.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

'Philosophy of Art 322'
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

During Free Press! the Art Department will open up the print shop for Guilford students, faculty, alumni, and staff to create rally flyers, stickers, patches, postcards, and signs. With the help of many creative minds from the Creative Writing and Art Departments we have several signs and flyers ready to go--and we will help you print your own to take home. There will also be the opportunity to custom make your own designs and share them with your community. Sponsored by the Honors Program and the Greenleaf Cafe.


Photography by Laath Martin

Real Talk : The Jumpsuit Project
Guilford Technical Community College | GTCC Medlin Campus Center

Government & Justice Studies at Appalachian State University 

Panel on Wrongful Convictions featuring Mark Rabil and Sherrill Roland. Mark Rabil is a Defense Attorney, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, as well as the Director of the Innocence and Justice Clinic at Wake Forest University. Sherrill Roland is a Exoneree, an MFA student at University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the Founder of the Jumpusuit Project.