Performances, Research Display Visit,  Conversation and Screening in collaboration with the W. E. B. Du Bois Center.

Exhibit at the Augusta Savage Gallery September 10-25.

Schedule

From Hadàn to Cumberland
September 9, 11:00 AM
W. E. B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite, Great Barrington, MA

Experience From Hadàn to Cumberland, a site-specific sound performance by Justin Randolph Thompson and Jason Thompson conceived for the W. E. B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite. Through live music, spoken word, movement, and sculptural gestures, the performance transforms the wooded landscape into a meditation on memory, ancestry, and the enduring resonance of Du Bois' life and thought. Drawing on The Star of Ethiopia, archival recordings, and the physical remains of the homesite, the work invites audiences to move through the landscape as sound reconstructs the absent architecture of memory. This performance is supported in part by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) Emergency Grant.

We Watched the Clouds
September 9, 4:00 PM
Oswald Tippo Courtyard, W. E. B. Du Bois Library, UMass Amherst

Later that day, We Watched the Clouds continues this exploration through a site-specific musical performance by Justin Randolph Thompson and Jason Thompson in the Oswald Tippo Courtyard. Featuring Randolph Bromery's alto saxophone alongside bass saxophone, lap steel guitar, spoken text, sculptural installation, and audience participation, the performance reflects on W. E. B. Du Bois' vision of Black internationalism, the intertwined legacies of John C. Robinson and Randolph Bromery, and the possibilities of remembrance through sound, flight, and collective ritual. This performance is supported in part by Map Fund and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) Emergency Grant.

Nucleus and Magnet
September 9, 4:30 PM
W. E. B. Du Bois Center, W. E. B. Du Bois Library, UMass Amherst

Following the performance the audience is invited to visit the research display Nucleus and Magnet, a chapter of Justin Randolph Thompson’s Creative Capital supported project Surveying Gravity. The piece reactivates the display structure of W. E. B. Du Bois's 1900 Paris Exposition as three architectural research modules at the W. E. B. Du Bois Center. Centered on selections from William Villalongo and Shraddha Ramani's Printing Black America, the installation brings together contemporary data visualizations, books from the Du Bois Center, and photographic transfers from Randolph W. Bromery's 1974 proposal for a center for intellectual development. Conceived as functional study desks, the modules activate the archive as a living space for research, artistic production, and collective inquiry.

Conversation
September 9, 5:00 PM
W. E. B. Du Bois Center, W. E. B. Du Bois Library, UMass Amherst

Following the visit, filmmaker Kahlil Joseph, artist William Villalongo, and Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center, join moderator Justin Randolph Thompson for a conversation exploring new interpretations of the Du Bois archive and the importance of creating compelling audiovisual narratives that connect Du Bois' enduring legacy with future generations.

Screening of BLCKNWS: Terms and Conditions
September 9, 8:00 PM
New Africa House Theater

BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions is a distinctive cinematic experience that mirrors the sonic textures of a record album, weaving fiction and history in an immersive journey where the fictionalized figures of W. E. B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey join artists, musicians, Joseph's family, and even Twitter chats, in a vision for Black consciousness. This film proposes an experimental look at Du Bois’ legacy and an Afro-futuristic meditation on what is to come.

*These events are supported in part by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) Emergency Grant and coordinated and hosted by the W. E. B. Du Bois Center as part of the public program for Surveying Gravity: A Mirror for Growing Contradictions, on view at the Augusta Savage Gallery September 10–25. The exhibition and its public programs are supported by the Creative Capital Foundation.

Bio

Justin Randolph Thompson is an artist, cultural facilitator and educator born in Peekskill, NY in ’79. Based in Italy since 1999. 

Thompson is a recipient of a 2024 MAP Fund grant, a 2022 Creative Capital award, a 2020 Italian Council Research Fellowship, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, a Franklin Furnace Fund Award, a Visual Artist Grant from the Fundacion Marcelino Botin and an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park amongst others. His work and performances have been exhibited widely in institutions including The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and The American Academy in Rome and are part of numerous collections including The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museo MADRE. 

His life and work seek to deepen the discussions around socio-cultural stratification and the arrogance of permanence through hybrid objects grounded in notions of functionality and through performative works that employ fleeting temporary communities as monuments and fostering projects that connect academic discourse, social activism and DIY networking strategies in annual and biennial gathering, sharing and gestures of collectivity. Thompson is Co-Founder and Director of Black History Month Florence and of The Recovery Plan.