Cancel Violence – National Center of Afro-American Artists

In our nation, notions of public commemoration, especially monuments, have traditionally focused on the great white man as hero. Women, people of color, and other marginalized groups have been largely invisible, irrespective of their contributions and sacrifices.

This exhibition challenges the great white man approach to monumentalization by celebrating the communal power of the people as they strive for civic health and social wholeness. With Cancel Violence, we have invited artists to give imaginative shape to the problem of violence in our communities and to project alternative futures.

Violence is endemic in our society, where it is a devastating legacy of slavery and colonialism. Johannesburg, Kingston, New Orleans, Boston—all are heirs to a bitter heritage of dehumanization and self-hatred expressed through inter- and intra-community violence, especially among youth. Predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods in cities across America are haunted by such economic, social, and psychological victimization.

Racism, discrimination, profound economic injustice, and a failed education system have substantially blocked pathways out of poverty, as reflected in the extraordinary wealth gap between ordinary Black and white households. Trapped by economic stagnation, damning social stigmas, crime, and violence, familial collapse is all too common in many Black neighborhoods and generates intolerable levels of self-destruction.

Each of us has an obligation to find ways forward that lead toward healing, wholeness, and self-love. Black artists help us light the way by visualizing for us both the problems and the possible solutions. Cancel Violence seeks to do just that.

Cancel Violence is a collaborative project anchored by two tenets: The first is that artists have a responsibility to use their art for positive social benefit to their community. The second is that positive social change requires dialogue and engagement across the whole of the impacted community. Cancel Violence focuses additionally on incorporating alternative approaches to memorialization, thus expanding how we think about the many contributors who advance our society.

With these values in mind, we invited eight concerned artists to share their ideas about intra-community violence—especially among youth—and proposed solutions. Additionally, together with scholars and our neighbors, we will convene discussions at memorials and public art sites within our community with the goal of inspiring dialogue that can lead us toward social and spiritual healing.

The Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) announces ARTISTS SPEAK PROJECTING PEACE, a bold extension of the current exhibition CANCEL VIOLENCE: ARTISTS SPEAK on Sunday, February 23, 2025 at 3:00pm. Free and open to the public, CANCEL VIOLENCE: ARTISTS SPEAK PROJECTING PEACE offers an afternoon of dynamic interplay between visual and theater artists and social visionaries active in greater Boston. The exhibition and related programs are funded through the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture’s UN-MONUMENTS INITIATIVE with a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

CANCEL VIOLENCE: ARTISTS SPEAKS presents works by Hakim Raquib, Rob Stull, Johnetta Tinker, Laurence Pierce, Rob “PROBLAK” Gibbs, Shea Justice, Paul Goodnight and L’Merchie Frazier. Through their art, they explore causes of violence and possible correctives in an effort to guide communities toward social healing and restored, human wholeness. Images from the exhibition intermixed with video clips of artist talking will be projected on the exterior facade of the museum at dusk thus providing one of the earliest grand scale, artistic screenings on a Roxbury building. It will be a must see.

PROJECTING PEACE is in collaboration with ILLUMINUS and FPoint Productions. It is comprised of still and video images created by the visual artists cited above. Preceding the outdoor screening, CANCEL VIOLENCE: ARTISTS SPEAK PROJECTING PEACE will present Love, Queens Who Suffer From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, an original choreo-poem written and compiled by Jamila Batts Capitman and Heather Thomas. Directed by Capitman, Love, Queens was inspired by Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Consider Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. It explores the impact of violence on communities through dramatic, poetic monologues. A discussion with the playwright and artists moderated by Chaplain Clementina Chéry of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute follows. CANCEL VIOLENCE: ARTISTS SPEAK is on display Fridays – Sundays, 1:00PM – 5:00PM through April 27.