ABOUT

For too long racism has been an ongoing presence in the lived experience of Black Indigenous People of Color and a subject of ignorance, denial, apathy, taboo and discomfort for White People.  Periodically the brutal truth of White Cultural Supremacy grabs the national attention and quickly fades into the background for White people.  Toni Morrison said in a 1993 interview “My feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem and they should start thinking about what they can do about it.”  As Palomar College, a predominantly White institution, commits to a cultural transformation, we all have a role to play, and the first step is ending the silence.

It’s Monumental . . .  Ending the Silence is a virtual arts and communications festival to engage our campus and community in a civic dialogue. We will use  Arts and Communications to explore the dynamics of racism/antiracism, anti-blackness, white cultural supremacy and the fluid concepts that develop as we expand our understanding of these phenomena in our society. Works created across our campus and community will be the springboards for public forums and personal conversations as we grapple to understand the complexity of building and sustaining a multiracial democracy.

We hope to inspire creative ways to fill the vacuum of silence. We hope that faculty will encourage and invite students to use this topic for individual or group assignments. We hope that other educational institutions and organizations will add their voices to the dialogue as collaborators, creators, or dialogue partners. We hope that individuals will find us a brave community of support to communicate their lived experiences and complex perspectives. And we hope to foster an environment of compassionate listening.

FRAMEWORK

Monuments are metaphors embedded in our physical landscape, collective imaginations and value systems. They structure the way we see the world and understand our story. The starting point for the creation of each work for our festival is a “Monument” using an expanded understanding of monuments to include (but not limited to):

• Physical monuments such as Confederate statues that valorize our racist past
• Ideas that have monumentalized in our founding documents, legal systems, cultural practices and  family
  narratives etc.
• Recent monuments that deserve greater attention, such as the Equal Justice Initiative Lynching Memorial
• Imaginary monuments that we envision replacing the old ones
• Others to be discovered

Writings for Live Performance by Monumental Ensemble Deadline March 26

If you have  a written work that you would like the Monumental Ensemble to perform live:

• Short Play
• Poem
• Short Story
• Speech
• Original Creation

Please submit it by March 26 using our Monumental Collector Form.

A Performance Work for Live Performance • Proposal Deadline March 26

If you are preparing a live performance work that you would like to include in the live component of the festival:

• Short Play
• Song or Musical Composition
• Dance Piece
• Spoken Word Poetry
• Short Story
• Speech

Please submit a proposal using our Monumental Collector Form.