On Wednesday night, a wrongly imprisoned North Carolina artist will be the first guest speaker in a new lecture series created by the University’s department of art and design.
Titled Art and Change, the lecture series is designed to bring to campus working artists, scholars and thinkers whose work pushes boundaries and presents art in new, interesting and insightful ways.
The series’ inaugural speaker is North Carolina artist Sherill Roland, founder of the Jumpsuit Project, a performance-art piece inspired by Roland’s imprisonment for 10 months for a crime he didn’t commit. Eventually exonerated, he returned to graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and in 2016 started creating the work. One aspect of which involved Roland immersing himself in campus life while wearing a bright orange jumpsuit similar to the one he wore as a prisoner.
The jarring optics of prison garb on a university campus was a way to both personally confront and process his experience as well as prompt conversations about mass incarceration. The Jumpsuit Project ultimately became a performance art piece hosted at universities, galleries and libraries around the country. His work is the permanent collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Fountainhead, Miami; and Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture, Charlotte, NC. He lives and works in Durham, N.C.
That immersive, emotional experience made him an ideal first speaker in the lecture series, which art and design chair Gina Wegner said grew from a desire for the department to address social issues such as race and incarceration with a more accessible component. In a university that champions diversity, she said, it’s important for the artists within to create connections with art and society.
“We think of ourselves as a welcoming community, but there’s a difference between just being a welcoming community and really bringing these important topics into our classes and into our overall structures,” Wegner said.
“These topics aren’t just about the art world. They’re about our world, and how we perceive it and how we perceive others and how those artists who do that come back and inform the art that we make…and help us question our own assumptions.”
Sherrill, a multi-disciplinary artists, said the Jumpsuit Project still benefits him as a form of therapy following his incarceration. One hope in bringing it to other communities is that others with similar struggles find some inspiration from it, or that others who show up gain new perspectives.
“The ideal is that you’ll feel more comfortable in the next conversation that’s as intimate and emotional as this moving forward,” he said.
Art professor Liz Miller said she’s known of Roland’s work for some time, and bringing him to campus is a great first step in what she hopes is an asset to the entire campus community.
“Sherrill has a powerful story, so that’s one thing, but the way he’s taking his story and finding ways to create connections across groups and engage in dialogue … It starts a really important conversation we need to have, and we really want to bring in people to lead that conversation.”
“The most I could ever ask from anybody is just the participation part,” Roland said, “because once you step into it, whatever comes out is good for everybody.”
Roland’s lecture will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20 in the University’s Ostrander Auditorium, located in the University’s Centennial Student Union. The lecture will also be available on Zoom.
Zoom log-in: https://minnstate.zoom.us/j/97917877528
Meeting ID: 979 1787 7528
Passcode: Roland
For more information, contact the Department of Art & Design at Minnesota State Mankato by phone at 507-389-6412.
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