Black Box Press Foundation Awards Art As Activism Grant to Rashaun Rucker
Rashaun Rucker
Grant Proposal: “I Hit More than I Missed”
Exhibition forthcoming in Houston, Fall 2022
The Proposal:
My proposal for the grant would be to create an installation titled "I hit more than I missed." The installation will speak to the conditioning we face as black people in society and specifically to the unfair practices of mass incarceration. The installation will stay in the narrative of my pigeon/ black male contrast. I am working on another installation of this same work for my fall solo show at the University of Michigan, but I am applying for this grant to create this installation within the same timeline in Detroit, somewhere my community can see it. The university is 40-50 minutes away from the city, far enough to make it inaccessible for the masses especially in a city with- out a regional transportation system. I am working to activate art in more public spaces and specifically black art in my community. The installation is going to use "clay pigeons', which are red or orange flying disc used for target practice in sport shooting. I would like to have these disc fabricated with a vector drawing that I have created of a black man amalgamated with a pigeon on each disc. Each disc will have the exact same face to speak to how we are invisible to some in society and all of us have the same narrative to those who seek to keep us in our constructed social spaces no matter what our story is. Our color greets most people/situations well before we do. The pigeon has a similar story of an unwanted animal. They are hated and despised due to a designed narrative of someone else's doing and bought to America from their native land in a similar manner. Both being reduced for so long that they don't require at- tention. The disc are called clay pigeons because long ago real pigeons were used for target practice. The way I want to install the piece, is to have 3-6 pigeons hanging on the wall while dozens are broken all around the space. I want to use the color orange to reference prison uni- forms. The title of "I hit more than I missed" symbolizing the effects of America and its caste sys- tem and the long term destruction of conditioning. My hope would be to have it installed for a number of months in a space in the city. My greatest wish for this is to be installed in a window space in the city where it forces the community to view it and reckon with the damage each day. (This would also be COVID safe) (a concept design is including in my work examples).