Ferguson (Oculesics)
by Katherine Prange
Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed on Aug. 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis. The shooting prompted protests that roiled the area for weeks. On Nov. 24, the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that a grand jury decided not to indict Mr. Wilson. The announcement set off another wave of protests.
In Ferguson (Oculesics), the intention is to capture the essence of this wave of emotional and racial divide that affected not only Ferguson at the time of the verdict but also the entire country and beyond. Additionally, the goal in this exhibition is to prompt the audience to make a face-to-face connection, through eye tracking, physical interaction and movement with officer Wilson. Finally and overall, to perpetuate an understanding of how we as a society have the ability to control, mitigate and propagate massive interruption and disturbance through our collective energy, consciousness and actions.
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