Witnessing, by Bradley McCallum
Witnessing (2022) responds to the ongoing problem of police violence in our communities and, in particular, the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, as well as the countless others affected by police violence. The project reimagines a project from two decades ago, Witness: Perspectives on Police Violence created by Bradley McCallum in collaboration with Jacqueline Tarry. The reimagination of this project calls attention to the fact that despite the significant amount of time between the two projects, there has been no significant reduction in the number of deaths of people of color caused by the police. Artist Bradley McCallum collaborated with many of the original project partners including the Center for Constitutional Rights to create new installations and programming in partnership with MoCADA that contextualize the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement and offer a renewed platform to honor recent victims and survivors.
DTBK’s support of this project enables me to reimagine a historic work that I began when I was the artist-in-residence with the New York Civil Liberties Union to show how the issue of police violence, is generational and how the organizations that I partnered with in 1999-2001, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights are still fighting to change systemic racism and how their efforts are complemented the current Black Lives Matter Movement.
Bradley McCallum, Artist
