A few years ago I had a grad seminar on improvisation and ritual that met for siix hours on Saturdays. And on the first day, I asked the smal group of writers if they wanted to go to the beach. And of course, they said yes. So we ate the food that each of us brought for each other (something we did every Saturday) and they hopped in my car and we got to know one another a little. We got to tell each other stories and talk aout talking story. That class culminated in an event that invited community from in and out of Rutgers-Camden where everybody got to eat and drink, share their memories, nightmares, fantasies, stories, and dreams about water by writing and drawing on a huge eight-point campus made of butcher paper—a kind of collaborative graffiti project (I know, a tautology). Well, the experiments of that class have now evolved into Quilting Water, a Directors Signature Project that I've brought into the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice.
Now, we are interviewing people about water from around the world.
Along with discussions and experiments with another great grad seminar in Spring 2020, we piloted some interview questions and a process which now we have begun to send around the world. We have now collected stories in regions of the continental U.S., but also South Africa, Brussels (by way of Somalia and Italy), the Philippines, Japan, the Atayal tribe in Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Puerto Rico... and much of the interviews done really by word of mouth. There's much more to this, not the least of which is a future colaboration with local quilters from Camden and led by Camden artist Renata Merrill.
So I'm really happy to announce that the ISGRJ at Rutgers-Camden and the ISGRJ Office of Undergduate Intellectual Life are launching an Undergraduate Quilting Water Prize, with a $1000 award each for six students across all three Rutgers campuses. They'll become a part of the ISGRJ intellectual and creative communities, collect water interviews, collaborate on art, and receive mentoring from working artists.
I have to thank my colleagues at ISGRJ as well as all the students at the RUC MFA program who have helped me with this crazy idea, not to mention the Quilting Water team. Special shout to my brother Mark who kindly designed the Quilting Water logo.
We're really at the very beginning of this, but I hope you'll follow as this conversation—which really is very small in that it's person--to-person—evolves.
I remind the QW team and my colleagues at ISGRJ that although there'll be an archive of stories, some beautiful quilts, and hopefully a book, what we're really making are many opportunities for people to get together and talk, which is also getting together and listening. We've partnered with my colleague Dr. Keith Green and his Af-Am class and now with Kathy Engel over at NYU whose art and public policy class is gathering interviews—and more, I believe. (If you're interested in recording an interview for Quilting Water, you can email me at patrick [dot] rosal [at] rutgers [dot] edu, particularly if you speak another language and/or know someone you might interview abroad and/or can and want to invite someone from a local or global community of color to contribute their responses to our archive — though none of these is a requirement, and anyone can interview anyone. Note: when emailing me the subject should read 'QW interview request' If you teach at the secondary or college level or in a community gathering class and would like to participate, please, all are welcome. I would ask for your patience in advance as I'm slow to email as some of you know well.)
Here's the call for the Undergraduate Quiling Water Prize: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZLUY8sc_3agTa_43whRFy23IclTWFZn_csVM003lGF7T3GQ/viewform
And you can see a bit more about Quilting Water, including a link to my Scarlet Scholars lecture from last fall (runtime just under an hour) that tells a little of my own story as an artist and how Quilting Water came to be https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/what-we-do/directors-signature-research-projects/quilting-water