{"id":20596,"date":"2021-10-05T09:04:25","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T13:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=20596"},"modified":"2021-10-05T09:04:25","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T13:04:25","slug":"shea-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2021\/10\/05\/shea-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Shea Justice’s Visual Diary Of Sordid U.S. ‘History As It Unfolds’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston artist Shea Justice\u2019s scrolls unspool across the walls of Spoke Gallery in Boston, an illustrated stream-of-consciousness journal of the United States\u2019 sordid political and civil rights history from the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush\u2019s failed wars to police murdering George Floyd.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy using rice scrolls, I create longstanding timelines about a government\u2019s war from its inception until its conclusion. These works explore how war and the government actions impact the ideology and lives of the citizens through propaganda,\u201d Justice, a teacher at Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School and member of Northeastern University\u2019s African American Master Artist Residency Program, writes in an artist statement. The exhibit \u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d<\/a> is on view from Sept. 13 to Oct. 23, 2021.<\/p>\n

It feels like two decades of social media scrolling or channel surfing\u2014bracing and painful and bitter to recall. Faces and headlines jump out: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Richard Clarke, Bill O\u2019Reilly, George Orwell, Lena Horne, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, American soldier Lynndie English torturing an Iraqi prisoner.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy patriotism has been challenged by some of my rich white students who don\u2019t know nothing about what it means to be Black,\u201d he writes in a 2003 piece next to his sketch of a photo, seen in the Boston Herald, of an American soldier standing over an Iraqi man cowering with his hands up. \u201cI just want to get my facts straight,\u201d Justice writes. \u201cI\u2019m going to try to record a part of history as it unfolds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere Justice writes about African Americans removed from Florida voting roles by Republicans in the run up to the 2000 presidential election. He draws Bush with long donkey ears. Across the former president\u2019s shirt collar, Justice has written: \u201cDon\u2019t mess with Texas or we\u2019ll do you like Blacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He writes: \u201cDemocrats are officially gutless cowards with no vision. Please bring on a third party!”<\/p>\n

Around sketches of Black boxers and bicycle racers, Justice asks \u201cHow many of us have sacrificed our bodies to sports to prove a point and prove we matter as a people?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are striking juxtapositions\u2014Martin Luther King Jr. giving his 1963 \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech next to a drawing of George Floyd being murdered by a White Minneapolis police officer in 2020 and Floyd\u2019s last words: \u201cMama, I can\u2019t breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, nature, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, (hopefully) weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2021 or the respective creators.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Shea<\/a>
Shea Justice’s (left to right) \u201cConstitution and Black Women,\u201d 2017; \u201cLynching: A Proud American Tradition,\u201d 2014; and \u201cThe U.S. Justice System and the Constitution,\u201d 2016, in \u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLayered<\/a>
\u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Shea<\/a>
Shea Justice’s \u201cLynching: A Proud American Tradition,\u201d 2014, in \u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Shea<\/a>
Shea Justice’s \u201cConstitution and Black Women,\u201d 2017, in \u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Shea<\/a>
Shea Justice’s \u201cThe U.S. Justice System and the Constitution,\u201d 2016, in \u201cLayered Time: Shea Justice\u2014Scrolls of Justice\u201d at Spoke Gallery, Boston, Sept. 30, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston artist Shea Justice\u2019s scrolls unspool across the walls of Spoke Gallery in Boston, an illustrated stream-of-consciousness journal of the United States\u2019 sordid political and civil rights history from the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush\u2019s failed wars to police murdering George Floyd. \u201cBy using rice scrolls, I create longstanding timelines about a government\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20595,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[938],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20596"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20603,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20596\/revisions\/20603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}