January 22 – March 29, 2018
AREA Gallery, Woodbury Campus Center, Portland campus.
Emily Simons was the University of Southern Maine Artist-in-Residence from February 16 – March 29, 2018. Simons cut her teeth on art activism as a member of the Maine-based acclaimed Beehive Design Collective. For over a decade, she traveled around the U.S. presenting the Beehive’s graphic works to communities in struggle and using arts-based education in social movement contexts. Now based in Pittsburgh, Simons works as a cultural organizer, illustrator, and graphic designer. For Simons’ residency project, she developed interactive visual storytelling materials about the US Healthcare crisis in collaboration with the Southern Maine Workers Center. Simons then worked with a crew of collaborators who traveled to Maine to produce the End the Debt! Decolonize! Liberate! Scroll, a 175″ long 3″ high participatory illustrated story of the colonization and resistance of the people of Puerto Rico.
The piece can only be seen by standing in a circle and passing it together, allowing the audience to experience and hold together this complicated, ongoing story of resistance in the face of many interconnected oppressions. It premiered in New York City at the Clemente Soto Vélez center on the lower east side of New York City, where collaborator Dey Hernandez also re-staged the scroll-production scene from the studio at USM. The scroll is continuing to travel to communities across the US and Puerto Rico with AgitArte Cultural Workers, where communities learn and connect to Puerto Rican resistance through this unique piece of art. The residency was supported by the Warren Memorial Foundation Visiting Artist Lecture Series.
