An exhibit celebrating Flint artists who present a mix of spoken word, comedy, and music as an expression of resilience to the ongoing water crisis is part of the 2023 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Symposium.
The Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design will facilitate the exhibit, titled “The Waters Remembers,” which celebrates the work of The Sister Tour, a community organization of Flint artists.
The artist collective’s performance, in which MacArthur Fellowship awardee LaToya Ruby Frazier collaborated with artists and activists Shea Cobb, Amber Hasan and their families, documents how they coped with one of the country’s most devastating man-made ecological crises, the Flint water crisis.
The event takes place Jan. 16 at the Stamps Gallery and features a post-performance conversation with the performers and a reception with light refreshments.
“I would like audiences to learn from The Sister Tour that art — visual, music, performance — is a powerful tool to have meaningful dialogues on difficult issues of systemic and historical inequities that continue to polarize and divide our society,” said Srimoyee Mitra, director of the Stamps Gallery.
“It is a perfect fit with this year’s annual MLK Symposium as ‘The Water Remembers’ highlights how Black women have been at the forefront of this revolution from segregation to elevation over the ages.”
Mitra also said the performance is deeply linked to the Stamps Gallery’s multipart exhibition “LaToya Ruby Frazier: Flint Is Family in Three Acts” that the gallery has organized in partnership with the Flint Institute of Arts and Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum at the Michigan State University.
