RIPPLES

This installation was created to bring the thinking and process behind the Time Is Always Right community mural into an institutional art space, the Massachusetts College of Art & Design. To learn more about the mural itself, click the button below.

Ripples, like Time Is Always Right, reflects Dr. King’s six principles of nonviolence, explored here in the ripples that came both before and after their articulation. In the center of the mandala sits a candle. This is the initial spark of satyagraha, or truth force, that inspires nonviolence. String and salt lie sprinkled around this candle, recalling Ghandi’s nonviolent movement to win India her independence from Britain. Then more candles, and King’s six principles, pulled from the same essay in which he writes of Ghandi’s deep influence on his own thinking. Next, a microphone invokes Hip Hop, rippling King’s legacy across my generation. Scattered gears and a ring of pencils celebrate our efforts to institutionalize nonviolent education. Finally, paper petals hold writings from mural participants on how they each made sense of one of King’s principles in their painted tiles; these are interspersed with field tile that still cradles kids’ thumbprints.

On a pedestal sits A Gospel of Hip Hop, the book by Hip Hop pioneer KRS ONE that led me to my study of King and this path of nonviolence I now walk. From KRS’ book fly a swarm of mixed media journals, a practice I began when I first read his pages in 2012. More journals stretch downward, circle the central mandala on the floor, lie in the shape of a question: what ripple comes next?