Newark, NJ—January 20, 2023—Express Newark, the center for socially engaged art and design at Rutgers University-Newark, has named Willie Cole as Artist-in-Residence and Farrah Rahaman as Curator-in-Residence for 2022-2023. Galvanized by scholar Kevin Quashie’s recent book, Black Aliveness, or a Poetics of Being, Express Newark has chosen Aliveness as its annual theme—a theme that will inspire the center’s yearlong programming of art installations, immersive films, public lectures, studio sessions, and community classes.
Aliveness invokes artistic experimentation and an ethos of collectivity to resist the fracture, apathy, and distrust that dominates much of our modern society and disempowers people from demanding long-term change. By bringing together the ideas of kinship, communal gathering, and creative process, Express Newark’s Aliveness invites audiences and artists to activate this space and explore the relationship between contemporary art, racial freedom, and
environmental justice.
“As we contend with existential threats to our democracy and the environment, Aliveness moves us beyond narratives of catastrophe or nihilism,” said Salamishah Tillet, Executive Director of Express Newark. “It enables us to imagine new worlds made of ecologically conscious methods, upcycled materials, and our collective vision and will.” Willie Cole, a Newark native, is a sculptor known for assembling found objects and transforming discarded materials into social commentary. As Artist-in-Residence, he has transformed Express Newark’s Paul Robeson Art Gallery into a working studio and site of co-creation in which community members are invited to contribute to the making of large-scale sculptures that are both visually striking and ecologically conscious.
During his residency, Cole will unveil Spirit Catcher and Lumen-less Lantern, two large-scale chandelier-like sculptures made up of more than 3,000 plastic water bottles held together by a metal wire. The works will be installed in the Hahne building’s atrium and Express Newark’s lobby during Express Newark’s Aliveness, beginning on February 2, 2023. “We have a water bottle crisis and a water crisis in general,” said Cole. “Plastic is killing the environment, and lead pipes have impacted big cities around the country, including in Newark. Making a public structure draws attention and makes people ask questions, which can lead to conversation and potential solutions.”
Born in Trinidad, Farrah Rahaman is a Philadelphia-based cultural worker, scholar, and activist who works as a curatorial fellow for the acclaimed BlackStar Film Festival. As this year’s Express Newark Curator-in-Residence, she is curating the film and video art exhibition Things We Do in the Dark: Cinematic Experiments in Kinship, which features over twenty video-based works from Black and Indigenous artists who engage in experimental, collaborative, and political approaches to contemporary filmmaking. The works invoke poetry, music, and intergenerational storytelling as a creative practice and expand independent forms of cinema into collective imaginings of liberation and resistance. Often situated within community media and learning settings, these works were created in what Rahaman describes as “cinematic ensembles” and by community-oriented artists, collectives, and chosen kin. Collaborations include work made between musician and filmmaker, romantic partners, friends, grandchild and grandparent, and some by first-time filmmakers.
“The chorus of filmmakers and video artists assembled here allows us to consider the relationship between the part and the whole,” said Rahaman. “They show how kinship and a ritual attention to care in artistic practice can buoy and expand independent forms of expression—in joyful, riotous, and everyday ways.” Installed throughout Express Newark from February 2 to July 31, 2023, Things We Do in the Dark is scheduled in two parts. The first curated selection of video works traces lineages of resistance in eruptive, celebratory, and intimate ways. The films protest the legacies of racial capitalism and violence by highlighting an ongoing commitment to gathering, survival, and existence on
a more vibrant register. The second rotation moves toward a speculative and experimental viewing experience that asks audience members to venture into a space of not knowing. Emboldened by the communal process and a collective sensibility, the films envision new worlds and ways of being for Black and Indigenous communities.
Willie Cole’s residency is supported by artist Keary Rosen, the director of Form Design Studio at Express Newark, who teaches a course at Rutgers University-Newark on art and community engagement. Cole’s sculptures are presented alongside the group exhibition Perceptual Engineering, which is curated by Colleen Gutwein O’Neal. Appearing in Express Newark’s Window Gallery, this show includes over twenty works by local artists and students with whom Cole shared his practice of repurposing a single object to create new ways of seeing and responding to our current environmental challenges.
Farrah Rahaman’s residency is supported by filmmaker Yvonne Michelle Shirley, the director of the Community Media Center at Express Newark and a member of the film collective New Negress Film Society.
Willie Cole’s residency is supported by artist Keary Rosen, the director of Form Design Studio at Express Newark, who teaches a course at Rutgers
University-Newark on art and community engagement.
Cole’s sculptures are presented alongside the group exhibition Perceptual Engineering, which is curated by Colleen Gutwein O’Neal. Appearing in Express Newark’s Window Gallery, this show includes over twenty works by local artists and students with whom Cole shared his practice of repurposing a single object to create new ways of seeing and responding to our current environmental challenges.
Farrah Rahaman’s residency is supported by filmmaker Yvonne Michelle Shirley, the director of the Community Media Center at Express Newark and a member of the film collective New Negress Film Society.
Express Newark “Aliveness” Activations
Spirit Catcher & Lumen-Less Lantern An Art Intervention by Willie Cole February 2, 2023 – February 2, 2024
The Express Newark Lobby
54 Halsey Street, 2nd floor, Newark, NJ
The Atrium of the Hahne Building 50 Halsey Street, Newark, NJ
Perceptual Engineering, “PE” Curated by Colleen Gutwein O’Neal February 2 – June 30, 2023
Paul Robeson Galleries at Express Newark 54 Halsey Street, 3rd floor, Newark, NJ
Things We Do in the Dark: Cinematic Experiments in Kinship
A Film Exhibition Curated by Farrah Rahaman
February 2 – July 31, 2023
Express Newark
54 Halsey Street, 2nd floor, Newark, NJ
About Willie Cole
Cole is a New Jersey sculptor whose work has been showcased in numerous one-person exhibitions. In 2015, his work was featured in “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and “Wild Noise: Artwork from the Bronx Museum of the Arts” at El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana. In 2016, the Brooklyn Museum exhibited his work in “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art.” Also in 2016, “Willie Cole: On-Site” opened at the David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, and traveled to the Museum of Art at the University of New Hampshire and Arthur Ross Gallery, Philadelphia. In 2017, Cole had solo exhibitions at the Snite Museum of
Art at the University of Notre Dame and the College of Architecture and Design Gallery at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 2019, “Willie Cole: Beauties” was exhibited at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and “Willie Cole: Bella Figura” was showcased at Alexander and Bonin, New York.
About Farrah Rahaman
Farrah Rahaman is a Trinidadian cultural worker based in Philadelphia. She understands media in its most capacious form, being attuned to the forms of creative expression that highlight liberation practices. Rahaman claims her work in the tradition of radical, decolonial love and kinship, which is activated through curation, teaching, placemaking, and
film-based practice. She is the Research and Curatorial Fellow at BlackStar Projects and a doctoral student in media and communication studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Rahaman is the creator of the Claudia Jones Project, an experimental grounding space and film collective dedicated to the life and legacy of Trinidadian communist and Notting Hill Carnival founder Claudia Jones.
About Express Newark
Led by Executive Director Salamishah Tillet and Creative Director Nick Kline, Express Newark is a center for socially engaged art and design. Supported by Rutgers University–Newark, it is conceived as a “third space” for students, artists, and activists to make art that matters, addressing our city’s most prevailing social justice issues and advocating for systemic change.
About Rutgers University-Newark
Rutgers University–Newark is a diverse, urban, public research university that is based in Newark and also of Newark—an anchor institution of our home city. RU-N conceives of anchor institutions as place-based organizations that persevere in their communities over generations, even in the face of substantial capital flight, serving as a social glue and economic engines.
Visitor Information
Express Newark is located at 54 Halsey Street in downtown Newark, NJ. Please visit www.expressnewark.org for public hours. Admission is free.
Contact
Florie Hutchinson Communications Consultant florie.hutchinson@gmail.com