Boomboxes + Mixtapes: Got The Power at ROOTS Fest 2011

Posted on June 29th, 2011

Photo from Roots Fest 2011. Courtesy of Roots Fest 2011.
The sights, stories and sounds of the West Baltimore community came alive with the help of LP ‘10 Create Change alumnus Bayeté Ross Smith's project Got the Power (formerly Community as Boombox) and other artists at ROOTS Fest 2011.

For five days in June, tens of thousands of people made history at ROOTS Fest 2011, a celebration of community, creativity, culture and connection in West Baltimore. Joined by nationally-renowned artists and performers, the West Baltimore community took over the 52 acres of green space that sit atop the “Highway to Nowhere,” which is an incomplete highway that divided a thriving West Baltimore community 40 years ago, splitting it into two halves.

ROOTS Fest kicked off with Arts, Culture & Creativity: A National Learning Exchange, a three-day national dialog on art, culture, community organizing and empowerment. This event, which took place June 22-24, was an opportunity for collaboration between artists, community members, elected leaders and many more. This exchange was followed by a weekend of free events at the outdoor festival.

By documenting oral histories and re-inserting the presence of displaced communities directly affected by the “Highway to Nowhere” within the West Baltimore landscape, Ross Smith and others hosted a variety of workshops and interviews that informed two site-specific projects.
(Above: Portrait of West Baltimore resident Waymon LeFall)

In the first portion of the project, artists recorded 15 individual sound pieces to shed light on the concept of home, the effects of displacement and relocation, changes that have occurred in the West Baltimore neighborhood, and a community’s vision for the future. A site specific portrait taken by Bayeté accompanies each individual's oral history.

At the beginning of June through late July, these images will be installed as a set of three large scale, 4’ x 3’ vinyl banners at five historic parks and buildings in the West Baltimore area. Using an open source, call-in technology, each image will include a telephone number that passersby can call from their cell phones to be automatically connected to the individuals pre-recorded oral history.

The second component to the project, Got the Power, involves the use of the content acquired from the interview process, as well as existing source material such as historic speeches and music. A sound producer from the Baltimore area work to edit a 20-minute soundscape, which will be emitted from a fabricated boom box tower measuring 10’ tall and 4’ wide, creating an artistic exploration through the cultural landscape of a West Baltimore Community.

See pictures of the boombox tower from pastGot the Power events and hear the first mixtape that got this project started.


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