In celebration of the grand opening of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, three St. Louis-based creators of the Mirror Casket (recently acquired by the museum) will hold a public convening to discuss the context, ideation, construction, performance and multiple exhibitions of the piece/project. As artists living in St. Louis, MO, their Artivist collective has responded to the killing of Mike Brown with multiple arts interventions, and is always asking the question of how art can strengthen social justice movements.
The Mirror Casket is a visual structure, performance, and call to action for justice in the aftermath of the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.
Created by a team of seven community artists and organizers, the mirrored casket responds to a Ferguson resident’s call for “a work of art that evokes more empathy into this circumstance” following the burning of a Michael Brown memorial on September 23, 2014.
With an aim to evoke reflection and empathy for the deaths of young people of color who have lost their lives unjustly in the United States and worldwide, the The Mirror Casket was performed as part of a “Funeral Procession of Justice” during the Ferguson October protests. As community members carried it from the site of Michael Brown’s death to the police department of the community, its mirrors challenged viewers to look within and see their reflections as both whole and shattered, as both solution and problem, as both victim and aggressor. The Mirror Casket has since been used throughout related protests and marches and was collected into the Smithonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in March 2016.
Artivists STL is an artist collective that formed in the midst of the Ferguson rebellion. Artivists work to make justice visual through impactful guerrilla art that seeks to shift repressive systems, and both imagine and enact a more equitable society.
Free and open to all. Please join us!
Mirror Casket Ferguson Artivist Meetup
in sponsorship with Greenpeace
