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The G.A.P. Van is a multi-use, collaborative, mobile art exhibition, workshop space and poster project that will engage residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma as the city approaches the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. This project is led by artist Rick Lowe, a 2014 MacArthur Fellow, known for reinventing community revitalization as an art form, and artist William Cordova, an interdisciplinary cultural practitioner.
The acronym “G.A.P VAN” is a reference to the R&B group GAP BAND. It also stands for Greenwood/Archer and Pine, the boundary streets of historic Greenwood, which was historically known as America’s “Black Wall Street” and the site of the most devastating racial massacre in the country’s history.
The G.A.P. Van will officially launch the Greenwood Art Project with a team of Tulsa natives, Activist Kode Ransom, Poet Jerica Wortham, filmmaker Jeff Van Hanken, and visual-anthropologist, Marlon Hall, traveling throughout Tulsa, engaging community residents in creating posters that share stories about the massacre and reflect their voices to advance a powerful, healing approach to the commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre and the history of the Greenwood neighborhood.
The residents will also be encouraged to participate by uploading their personal stories to the PBS American Portrait. The G.A.P. VAN will feature ongoing exhibitions of the posters on the exterior of the van, and will also host pop up art workshops, poetry and music events, films, and other activities.
The G.A.P. VAN will travel to and engage with the large and varied range of Tulsa communities for six months and will feature rotating exhibits of the posters and stories collected on the PBS American Portrait website.
PBS American Portrait, a national storytelling project, is an ongoing crowdsourced initiative in the form of a website, a documentary series, a book, and three public art projects across America.
The goal of the project is to generate a shared understanding of what it really means to be American today. The project asks you, and people all over the country, to submit your individual stories by responding to one of a number of thought-provoking prompts.
Whether it’s joy or sorrow, triumph or hardship, family traditions you’ve followed for decades, we want to put together a picture of life as it’s really lived, today. It’s a chance for you to give us a glimpse into your life, and an opportunity for you to be heard.
The Greenwood Art Project is a part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, which encourages mayors to collaborate with artists to develop innovative public art projects that address critical issues in their communities.
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