Rosa Parks 100th Birthday Wishes Project Exhibition Opens at the Troy University Rosa Parks Museum!
The show maps the wishes of the school children of Montgomery Alabama for the future of their city inspired by the life work of Ms Rosa Parks in honor of her 100th birthday. Historic maps of the city reveal how the neighborhood that gave rise to the civil rights movement was systematically dismantled by the construction of freeway US 80.
A composite portrait is presented of a fragmented city, crying out to be repaired through softer urban infrastructure, green, vital, alive with music and a flourishing culture of tolerance, peace and reconciliation.
The children’s wishes are spatialized and categorized, creating a database to catalyse neighborhood activism and support new educational programming.
ROSA PARKS 100th BIRTHDAY WISHES PROJECT RECOGNIZED BY THE US SENATE!
WISHES TAKE IT TO THE STREETS
Thousands of wishes collected for the transformation of the public realm and for the role of citizens Inspired by the Life Works of Rosa Parks.
This celebration and reactivation of the life works of Rosa Parks continues 13-months, last the duration of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In February, Youth Ambassadors presented the first posters, printed on handmade paper to the Mayor of Montgomery and the Super Intendant of Schools.
PRINTING IN COURT SQUARE, 100th BIRTHDAY COLLECTIVE EXPRESSIONS
Gathering spontaneously in the public for art, cooking, music, conviviality is uncommon in Montgomery. And Court Square, on axis with the capital, is perhaps the epicenter of this boarded up city. The original watering hole and public slave market for this cotton river rail capital of Alabama, Court Square goes deeper still to the heart of the creek nation. No wonder the MOBILE STUDIO could on-cork such passionate responses tapping into our most civic hopes and dreams for the future of this city. It is time to undo the curses, it is time to print and to sing and to eat together in public once again.
We printed the first 5 of the upcoming series of 100 birthday wishes in honor of the life works of Rosa Parks, of her as a citizen and leader of change.
PAPER MAKING DAY WONDERFUL
ROSA PARK’s 100th Birthday Wishes
In honor of the occasion of Rosa Park’s 100th birthday celebration the Mobile Studio has developed a hands-on, participatory series of activities that will manifest the community wishes of the children of Montgomery Alabama through co-creative art making and civic engagement. The children of Montgomery will be asked to reflect on Ms. Park’s vision for her city during her life time and write down their own vision and wishes for their city today. The visions of the children will be collected by the Rosa Parks Museum, the Mobile Studio will then choreograph a series of paper-making, graphic design, silk-screen printing, poster production, mapping and design proposals with the Rosa Parks Museum Ambassadors and the greater community. The Studio will guide this process so that the children’s wishes become both graphic messages and visions for community transformation that take inspiration from the past, add engagement in the present toward actions that will change the future for the benefit of all of Montgomery’s citizens. This birthday celebration is designed as more than a remembrance or even an event, it is an unfolding process of education and engagement with our sense of place designed to activate wishes inspired by Rosa Parks into the future.
To submit your own wishes to the 100 Wishes project print out the following form and mail it to 231 Montgomery Street Montgomery, AL 36104
Visit http://montgomery.troy.edu/rosaparks/museum/ and this video for more information about the Rosa Parks Museum.
mobile studio 