An international examination on human states of separation

What divides? / What divide?

March 2007

Funny how some things present themselves. Last June I began planning this project to travel internationally in order to create collaborative paintings on the topic of violence. Then, like a vulture from high above, violence found a place to roost in my own back yard. A group of college students from Guilford College and other locations, they have been described in the media as Palestinians and football players, got into a drunken fight late at night in the courtyard of Bryan Hall on the campus of Guilford College. This event ended up in the local media and then spread like fire through the international media. Headlines like " Possible hate crime at Quake College" brought the media onto campus in droves. Fox 8's satellite van lived outside my class room for over a week. The college community was in shock, as some parts of the school demanded it be labeled a hate crime and others appealed for careful consideration of the facts. Community meetings, and student protests were held, charges filed, in-college hearings held, lawyers engaged, and so forth. Into this process Terry Hammond and I proposed a community art project that invited everyone to share through words and images their feelings on this subject. Working with four Art majors, Tim, Matt, Gillian, and Kate, I began collecting images and comments. After building a wooden diptych 7 feet high by 6 feet wide, we began to paint.

The goal was to not only respond to our own feelings over this event but to include the contributions give us by the community. In this way we were striving for a "visual consensus." Before you think "Art by Committee" let me say that all four of these wonderful students worked hard to listen to the own intuitions, to respect the material given us, and to respect each other. We never felt like this was a commission piece.

After coming to a first state we displayed the work in the Hege Library and posted material asking "Does this work of art reflect your feelings and thoughts on the Bryan fight and its aftermath? The response was immediate and engaging. Below are photos from the project and quotes from the donated materials.

An early state of the painting.

The next state.

After hours of work and discussion we displayed the work in the Hege Libary with a query and book for comments from the community.

June 2006

For Immediate Release

What divides us as humans? Is there any real division? Answers to these questions will be sought in a new painting project.

Community activist artist Todd Drake announces the beginning of a new international project examining the issues surrounding human conflict and separation. Titled "What divides? / What divide?" the scope of this project is international. Working via the Internet and in person, Drake will collect images and comments from people from specific communities at odds with other groups. The content will be their response to the query "What matters to you? " Using this material as a starting point Drake will create a painting that reflects that community and his impressions while working with them. This painting will be paired with a another painting created similarly from an "opposing" community creating a diptych or pair of paintings shown together side by side..

Drake's paintings are a unique combination of external and internal influences. For the et al series of paintings the artist worked with unique communities from across his home state of North Carolina including retail cashiers, exotic night club employees, truck drivers, refugees from Vietnam living in the artist's community, and house keeping staff at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among others. These paintings by Drake may be viewed on-line at www.tdrake.com

Drake's first diptych in the series will center on illegal immigration along the US/ Mexico Border with one painting reflecting the immigrant viewpoint and the other the US Border Patrol view point. Drake will travel to the US / Mexico border during the summer of 2006 to work with the US Border Patrol. Drake has already worked extensively will undocumented immigrants from Mexico and co-created a book on Mexican immigration to North Carolina with anthropologist Hannah Gill titled Going to Carolina del Norte while a Rockefeller fellow at the University Center for International Studies at UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Future diptychs will include content shaped by communities involved in immigration from Africa to the EU, traditional European communities and new immigrant communities, Palestinian and Israeli communities, decedents of Southern slave holders and descendants of slaves, North and South Korean, and others. A traveling exhibition of the paintings along with documentation of the process will be produced by the artist.

Opportunities for sponsorship, media coverage, and exhibition dates for the series are still available. Interested parties should contact Todd Drake directly.

Todd Drake was a 2005 Rockefeller Fellow at the University Center for International Studies at UNC. He currently teaches art history at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC.

Contact Drake at todd@tdrake.com or call 336-253-2328 for more information.

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