The Adelman Firm is a co-sponsored of Grounded’s Me and the Light Community Education and Empowerment Initiative.
What follows is a recent update on this important initiative:
In late August, ten Grounded Student Ambassadors presented their final summer projects, which ranged in topics but they were all equally inspiring. Some examples include a rap track/community challenge called “Good Trouble,” inspired by the late Congressman John Lewis, a photo campaign that challenges the lack of diversity in the beauty industry, a poem that explores intergenerational thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement, and a mindfulness program that is being implemented at East High School to help students cope with the impacts of COVID and distance learning.
We’ll be supporting at least five of these students with their projects as Grounded Fellows over the next year.
In addition, Abel Billings’ artwork from the East High spring remote learning pilot was chosen to be a billboard in Memphis in collaboration with the For Freedoms 2020 Awakening nation-wide billboard campaign, which will be up until after the election. We also have an additional billboard in Jackson, MS which features Lil’ Buck in a scene from Me and the Light as part of the same campaign.
Attached are both of the billboard images. Here is a link to a google map showing the exact locations of both billboards:
· Grounded Billboard Locations
The Billboard Project and Grounded’s participation was featured last week in the Guardian:
· www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/oct/12/indigenous-peoples-day-billboard-project
And starting this week, East High School English teachers Bridget Riley and Quinn Katherinberg began sharing our newly designed Me and the Light curriculum with 200+ students over the next nine weeks. This has been a big undertaking, we're really happy with the result and excited to see this implemented. This is the second phase of the education prototype David Waters reported on last spring.
Additionally, we continue to work with Joyce Anderson at the Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center to share this educational experience with incarcerated youth.
Here is a little more information about the For Freedoms 2020 Awakening nation-wide billboard campaign:
The billboards are part of For Freedoms' upcoming 2020 AWAKENING campaign rolling out in the lead-up to the 2020 Presidential election. This particular billboard initiative is centered around the use of questions.
On 10/12/2020, the nation-wide billboard campaign went live. Billboard designs can be found in all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam. This year's artist-designed activations feature works that interpret the new freedoms— listening, healing, justice, awakening— in ways that are as various as the participating artists and billboard locations.
“Our billboard campaign is the great equalizer for accessing art. There’s no fee to pay, no intimidating door to walk through, no exclusive club focused on inviting VIPs only. You just need to be on a road to somewhere.” Claudia Peña, For Freedoms’ Executive Director.
What happens when some of the most creative imaginations co-opt the largest, most unavoidable public advertising spaces across the nation? How does your experience change when you’re driving down the road and expect to see yet another reductive political slogan or an ad for the latest iPhone and instead are confronted with a work of art? This confrontation forces you to pause, even if it’s just for a moment — that pause is what this campaign is all about." Taylor Brock, For Freedoms’ Creative Producer.
